Contribute
The Gazette is built from two things: what the county's own records say, and what people who live here send in. This page is for anyone who has either. Writing about the county's past, or the photographs, letters and stories the written histories left out.
What the Gazette publishes
County history, with its sources shown. Not opinion, not current politics, and not promotion for anybody.
Every claim in a piece says where it came from. A quotation is copied off the image of the page it was printed on, not out of a database that retyped it. When we get something wrong, the correction is published on the piece with the date it was made. We do not quietly edit something we got wrong.
How that works in practice is on Where this comes from.
For writers and historians
Send a short bio, a photograph or two, and a few pieces of your writing. If the work fits, we will feature it under your own name, with your sources credited beside it.
Anyone may contribute. You do not need a degree or a list of publications. You need a subject in this county and the patience to show where each fact came from.
One rule applies to people in public life. If a contributor holds public office or is a candidate for one, the piece says so under their name, and the piece is about history, not about anything their office touches. We do not run bylined features from declared candidates within ninety days of an election.
Photographs, letters and stories
We are looking for the county as it looked and as it worked. Farms, stores, schools, churches and main streets. Work crews and ball teams. Letters and diaries. A story about a place that is not there any more.
You keep the original and you keep the rights. You give us permission to publish it, we credit you, and we say plainly what is known about it and what is not.
If something is too fragile to move, say so. We will come to you and photograph it where it is.
Two rules that do not bend
We do not publish photographs of identifiable Amish people. This is out of respect for a belief held across the settlement. Buildings, farms, buggies at a distance and hands at work are all welcome.
Family research under embargo stays embargoed. If you share work that is not ready to be published, it is not published until its owner releases it.
Send it in
Tell us what you have. We will reply with how to send the scans or the writing itself.
A good scan is far too large for a web form, so this one asks what you have rather than for the file.
Listing a business, adding an event or correcting a piece each have their own form on Submit something.