Having gotten most all of the articles as PDF’s I begin using Acrobat’s OCR function create editable versions of each of Arba F. Shaw’s articles. It is not a perfect process – it will require a lot of proofing to get accurate transcriptions of all of the articles based on the early 20th century font choice of the Walker County Messenger.

Now I have to find the missing articles. The library in Walker County must have sourced from the same place as the Georgia archives as they are missing the same articles.

I have determined that the LaFayette Courthouse has bound copies of the Walker County Messenger – and within a couple of days, the clerk confirms they have my missing dates, which is great, I can just go in and photograph the missing articles and then transcribe them.

Not so fast – Clerk of Superior courts says that the Probate Judge Christy J. Anderson has an issue with anyone coming into the courthouse with my camera , it’s not allowed- I provide them with a full explanation of the reasons why I need to do this and if I have to will write the transcription by hand.