When I
first volunteered to sponsor the Baxter County section of the ARGenWeb portion of the USGenWeb,
the first thing I did was send for this "whitepaper" giving the who,
what, when, where, why, and how of the project. I hope you enjoy reading it as
much as I did, and I also hope it will encourage you to contribute some
information to the Baxter County GenWeb.
Subject:
Information request
Date: 28 Dec 96 23:35:15 -0600
From: whitepaper@usgenweb.com
(whitepaper@usgenweb.com)
This
article is copyrighted by the USGenWeb Project.
Permission is explicitly granted to distribute and publish this article
unchanged. Questions regarding publication should be addressed to John Rigdon
===================================================================
The goal of
the USGenWeb project is to create a global library
for genealogy research. This library provides electronic versions of
genealogical resources and volunteers to answer research questions via the
Internet. The Archives maintain original source data (transcriptions of
censuses, wills, etc.) and will be the foundation and material source for
publishing of genealogy efforts.
The USGenWeb Project will provide resources for each state (and
each county or equivalent) in a format that makes national publishing projects
possible.
Who were
your ancestors, and what was their life like? The answer to this simple
question is not easily found. The course of a genealogical project is slow and
tedious. Public records are searched, manuscripts are read, and books are
studied. Contact with other genealogists is sought. The information gleaned
from these sources is organized, and theories are formed. More research is needed
to prove or disprove the theory. As more information is collected, the answer
to the question slowly begins to unravel. Finally, after countless sources have
been assimilated, the information is finally ready for publication so others
can benefit.
By far, the
greatest amount of time spent on a genealogical project is in research.
Originals of public records are scattered throughout the country and access to
them is available to only those able to travel to them. Placing transcriptions
or copies of regional records in various repositories makes research possible
at more locations; however, the information is still not accessible to the
entire population. The time spent searching for each individual record is
usually greater than the amount of time spent utilizing the record.
The
Internet can make access to records easy. The USGenWeb
Project seeks to leverage this new great new medium to the advantage of
genealogy researchers in several ways:
Your family
and mine might have no names in common, but we might find ourselves linked by
the database of a third person. So, if all three databases are online, and if a
mechanism exists to link those databases together, then we effectively have a
single database. It doesn't matter where the data actually resides. What
matters is that we have access to it and that it is organized in a manner that
makes research easy.
Establish
the US State Page - completed
Establish State Pages - completed
Establish Local Pages etc... - 43% completed
The USGenWeb project had its roots in discussions that occurred
on the GenWeb mailing list hosted by Gary Hoffman. In
March and April of 1996, Jeff Murphy laid out a framework and began to solicit
volunteers for the KYGenWeb project.
Through
Jeff's vision and organization, the KyGenWeb Project
took shape in an amazing 90 days. Here's a quote from his posting to Roots-L on
"April Fools Day" '96.
"The structure revolves around linking together databases which have people who were born, married, or died in KY. To facilitate the placement of these databases... we have started by creating a master page for all counties in Kentucky... This will give all KY researchers a single entry point to all counties in the state.
If you would like to have your data available on the web, and have names in KY, please look at the master page to see if a county has been created yet for your data. Contact the page owner and talk to them about linking to your data, and about locating space on the web where your data can be placed...
We are also looking for some software support, to help us implement a special LINK feature, which will help tie together individuals in different databases and provide an html pointer to the other database...
This is an opportunity to create a working model for the rest of the country, and other states may follow suit..."
In June,
1996, the USGenWeb began as an outgrowth of the KYGenWeb project. It, too, has had phenomenal growth. As we
celebrate the 6 month birthday mark for this initiative, we have almost 1,345
counties being hosted by county coordinator volunteers all over the country.
Here are some recent statistics:
From
September 1, 1996 to October 1, 1996
56,000 people have loaded the USGenWeb page.
There have been 350,000 redirects (people who have used the USGenWeb
system to visit state pages).
Our page for introducing the USGenWeb Project to new
volunteers received over 5,000 visits.
Individual pages for 50% of the states are more than 36% complete
Individual pages for 20% of the states are more than 50% complete
The TOP TEN States are:
Kentucky - 100% complete
Washington DC - 100% complete
Indiana - 99% complete
Tennessee - 91% complete
Mississippi - 87% complete
West Virginia - 80% complete
Virginia - 80% complete
Connecticut - 75% complete
New York - 73% complete
Maine - 69% complete
For the past month, we have had an average of more than 2,500 queries per week
posted on the various state pages. The most recent week numbered 2,775.
The USGenWeb project introduces several new ideas to genealogy
research on the WEB:
Fifty-one
coordinators (every state and Washington, DC) have their own state page. They
are seeking out volunteers for every county in their state. From the USGenWeb site (http://www.usgenweb.com), you can go
directly to a state's homepage. Take New York state
for example:
NYGenWeb -
http://www.usgenweb.com/ny
From the NYGenWeb page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygenweb, you
will find:
General
information about NYS resources
How to volunteer for the NYGenWeb project
How to subscribe to internet mailing lists for NY researchers 62 counties,
about 1/2 of which are hosted (in various stages of readiness)
The status
of a county may be any of the following:
Counties
that are already online will have a direct link from the state page. County
pages in general have the following
Our
organization can best be described as "webby." The individuals who
populate our organization tend to have "webby" personalities. That
is, there is a sense of interlinking of interests and a spirit of teamwork. The
"rules and regulations" are few and open to change -- the biggest
rule is "If you want to play, play nice!" We use a lot of smileys :-)
grins <g> and we like it that way :-) < g >
Our
structure is geographic: a user can enter WorldGenWeb,
hotlink to USGenWeb, then to TNGenWeb,
then to Lincoln County, TN. The county page may also offer hotlinks to towns
since, in some states (New England especially), the town is the basic
genealogical unit rather than the county.
Each web
page is maintained by a coordinator. With over 3,000 US counties, it is futile
to expect consistency -- and, in any case, not within the spirit of our
organization. Yet, the user will find a great deal of similarity since sample
pages and guidelines are available to make the coordinator's life easier. State
coordinators support county coordinators and mailing lists are provided (by
Dale Schneider and others) for all geographic levels (except counties, which
are too numerous). For example, the mail list usgenweb@nebr.dsenter.com allows
US state coordinators a place to discuss state-level concerns; and,
magen-l@nebr.dsenter.com allows Massachusetts county coordinators a forum for
discussion.
Dale
Schneider maintains this web page. This project consists of over 200 countries.
Few countries have coordinators now since the page has only existed for a short
time.
WorldGenWeb:
http://www.dsenter.com/worldgenweb/index.html
Dale Schneider, WorldGenWeb
Coordinator: mailto:DALE.SCHNEIDER@dsenter.com
John
Rigdon coordinates the USGenWeb
Project. All 50 states and DC have coordinators and active web pages. The main USGenWeb page is located at http://www.usgenweb.com. This site
is maintained by Dale Schneider. The USGenWeb
Archives (see below) is affiliated with USGenWeb and
coordinated by Linda Lewis. Help files are maintained by Nancy Trice.
Unlike
our web pages, which are dispersed across the Internet, the Archives is located at RootsWeb. The
Archives is organized in the same format as the web sites.
Archives Main Table
of Contents: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/usfiles.htm
Here's a sample of what's in the Archives now:
Wills
and Cemetery listings from Columbia County, GA
Cemetery listings from Ornarga Funeral Home, IL
Tax lists from Breckinridge County, KY
Wills from Calloway County, KY
Cemetery listings from Harrison County, KY
Census records from Orleans, MA
Census records from Olmsted County, MN
Census Records from Washington County, NY
Census Records from Rowan County, NC
Early Colonists of SC
Census records from Spartanburg County, SC
Census records from York County, SC
Census records from SD
Obituaries from Campbell County, SD
Newspaper Extracts from Lincoln County, TN
Civil War Rosters from VA
Newspaper articles listing CSA casualties in VA
Birth records from Essex County, VA
Census records from Jamestown, VA
This
site in California is maintained by Brian Leverich.
The Archives are located here and Brian also offers free space to individuals
for any other USGenWeb purpose including state and
county web pages.
This
site is hosted in Nebraska and is designed to offer a nationwide index to the
names and URLs that make up the USGenWeb project and
other genealogy sites. It is being built and maintained by John Rigdon. The Index will provide the framework for local,
statewide, and national linking of data that are being organized and published
by the various county coordinators.
In
conclusion, the USGenWeb Project will require helping
new people set up databases. It will require some funding. It will require that
all data be accessible on line. It will require some organization, and it will
require a lot of work by thousands of volunteers.
We need you
to make this project successful. Here's how you can help.
Make and
distribute copies of this article.
Volunteer to "host" a county page.
Volunteer to provide a lookup resource.
Volunteer to transcribe original records for the Archives.
Thanks to
the following individuals who have contributed to this article. They are all a
part of the USGenWeb project and helped in its
creation. Also many thanks to the hundreds of other
volunteers who are working to make the USGenWeb
Project a success.
Joy Fisher
- cityslic@ix.netcom.com
Barry McGhee - mcnamara@usit.net
Kim Harris Myers - estral@vivanet.com
John Rigdon - JRigdon@gabn.net
George Waller - hbladm1@uconnvm.uconn.edu
USGenWeb Project - Release 5 10/04/96