USGenWeb: Difference between revisions

[http://www.usgenweb.org/ The USGenWeb Project] (the proper name of the project) is part of this project and works together to provide free genealogy websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States. This Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free genealogy access for everyone.

Note: The Project is not and never have been owned by Rootsweb or Ancestry.com at any time. The project is not affiliated with [http://www.worldgenweb.org/ The WorldGenWeb Project] at all.

In March and April of 1996, a group of genealogists organized the Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database Project. The idea was to provide a single entry point for all counties Kentucky, where collected databases would be stored. In addition, the databases would be indexed and cross-linked, so even if an individual were found in more than one county, they could be located in the index. At the same time, volunteers were found who were willing to coordinate the collection of databases and generally oversee the contents of the web page. Now the same thing is in the works for many states in the nation.  

On the occasion of the anniversary held at Boston, Massachusetts 2006 Federation of Genealogical Societies. This is posted with permission of Linda Haas Davenport. This article was originally printed in Evertons Publishers' Genealogical Helper.  

As the National Coordinator of the USGenWeb Project™ I attended this conference and at a reception a gentleman at the table said, "I've been curious for a long time now - how has the Project avoided a take-over?" From across the table a lady remarked, "Or being bought out by Ancestry." The conversation quickly turned to a question that seemed to be uppermost in everyone's minds: How can the Project, in this day and age when most genealogy sites charge a fee to access their information, afford to offer its wealth of information for free?  

The next day I stopped by the Everton booth to say Hi to Leland Meitzler and he said, "Linda! Just the person I want to see. I'm always being asked if RootsWeb owns the Project or the Project owns RootsWeb. Clear that up for me, will you?" The upshot of this conversation was the decision for me to write an article (for Genealogical Helper) on the history of the USGenWeb Project to celebrate its10th anniversary and along the way to hopefully clear up some confusion and answer the question - "how can they do it for free?"  

Come take a stroll with me through the past as I explore the roots of the USGenWeb Project and the thing it is so intertwined with - Internet Genealogy.  

In 1981 IBM released its "Personal Computer," but at a cost of 8,000+ it wasn't something the average person ran right out to buy. It wouldn't be until 1995 that the "personal computer" would become our well-known PC and, though still taking a chunk out of our budget, many of us would purchased one.  

In 1969 what would later be called the Internet began when four computers in different locations were hooked together. In the beginning this network of computers was used mostly by the defense department (ARPAnet) and by universities (BITNET) and ran on IBM mainframe computers. (1) It would take several years and the development of many tools before the Internet, as we know it today, would be taken for granted by the average family historian.<br>Karen Isaacson, in her article in the National Genealogical Society Computer Interest Group magazine,(2) tells us that genealogy first appeared on the Internet in 1983 when a USENET newsgroup called net.roots, named after the popular Roots miniseries, was launched. She goes on to say, "Access, if you could get it at all, was "free" from an employer, from a university, perhaps (later) from a community-based Freenet. There was a culture of volunteers working together, to make resources freely available to the general community. There was no World Wide Web. The tools used by most netizens were email, FTP, and perhaps telnet."  

By 1987 CompuServe and Prodigy were popular places for family historians. These early bulletin boards allowed them to exchange information and chat about their favorite subject (much to the relief of their family members). These early meeting places, were in turn, about to be replaced by a more exciting tool - email lists. Eric Thomas (1), refined his LISTSERV software in 1986 and it quickly became the standard for email. LISTSERV made it possible for Alf Christophersen of Norway, and Marty Hoag of North Dakota State University, in 1987, to start the ROOTS-L mailing list, and with this list genealogy on the internet began in earnest.  

Karen talks about those early days: "With the creation of ROOTS-L, things began to happen. John Wilson proposed a database of surnames people were searching in late 1988. About the same time, Cliff Manis got permission from Marty Hoag to start a library of genealogy files on the NDSU FTP server and, with help from various ROOTS-L participants, made hundreds of files freely available to anyone on the network." (2)  

Family historians are and have always been a sharing group. It is the one hobby in which there is no competition. As we can see from the above history this sharing of information was carried over to the internet from the very beginning.  

The amount of genealogical information available on the internet grew slowly until several things came together during 1993-1995. In1993 AOL and Delphi began to connect their proprietary email systems to the internet and to offer a small amount of server space to their subscribers for personal webpages. In 1994 Netscape, the first user-friendly browser, was released. 1994 ushered in many local ISPs, and affordable dial-up modems hit the electronics stores. In 1995 Microsoft released its Internet Explorer browser and included it in the 1995 release of Windows. By 1995 several IBM PC clones were on the market and the price had fallen enough that purchasing one was feasible for many of us.  

And - in 1995 genealogy on the internet took a giant step forward when two events occurred. <br>In early 1995, Larry Stephens, a family historian with the University of Indiana, was on a genealogy email list for KY. He was impressed with the list and wanted one like it for his state of interest, Indiana. Receiving permission to use the university's email server he set up the IN list. At the time, email lists weren't free and the number of messages that could be sent was very limited, but this wasn't the case for Larry's lists. As people heard about the IN list Larry started receiving requests to set up lists for other states and areas. Before long hundreds of email lists were being run, under Larry's direction, on the university's server. Through Larry's lists hundreds of family historians joined the on-line genealogy community.  

=== The Birth of The USGenWeb Project  ===

We family historians have long been used to zeroing in on a county to find information on our ancestors so the whole idea of websites devoted to genealogy for a county was exciting. During late May and early June of 1996, Jeff, Bill and a few other people kicked around the whole idea of state and county sites and out of those conversations the concept of the USGenWeb was born: a web of inter-connected genealogy sites - a site for every state in the U.S. with each state site linking to all the counties (parishes or townships) within the state and to tie the whole thing together, a national site with links to all the state sites. Since it was to be a web of genealogy sites it would be named "US GenWeb." The name had to be changed to USGenWeb because US GenWeb was a copyright violation. The words "The" and "Project" weren't added until later. <br>Concept to realization took place in less than 15 days. The announcement of USGenWeb was made on Jun 16, 1996 and volunteers rushed to adopt the proposed new state sites. On Jun 18, 1996, Dale Schneider set up an email list on his personal server and subbed 18 people to the list. Those 18 people became the first state coordinators and not a one knew the first thing about webpages or html. John Rigdon designed a shell county site and Jeff a state shell site. John also wrote the necessary code for a query site and placed it on-line. The volunteers, using the basic shell and a minimal amount of html coding, added links to the query site and whatever small amount of genealogy information was found on the web and uploaded the sites.  

By June 20th twenty state sites were either on-line or ready to be uploaded with eleven more "in the works." The national site had been placed on-line around June 15th. As each state was uploaded Jeff added a link to the new state's site. The new state coordinators began looking for volunteers to take over the county sites. It didn't take long before the USGenWeb's first major problem was encountered. Money.  

When first approached by Jeff, some misunderstanding or miscommunication occurred, and RootsWeb wasn't willing to host the USGenWeb sites, but that was quickly cleared up. RootsWeb offered to host the USGenWeb sites on its servers for free with no limit on the amount of space for a site. With RootsWeb making server space available for free, volunteers could afford to take on a Project site and by the end of June or very early July 1996 there was a website for every state and county on-line - ready to welcome visitors. The state coordinators were responsible for finding volunteers to man the county sites and by the end of 1996 70% of the county sites were adopted by volunteers.  

By early 1997 the USGenWeb was in full operation and the family historians on the Internet flocked to the Project's websites. By Jan 1997 RootsWeb had clocked, 7,548,846 page views of USGenWeb pages. By Jan 1998 the total had reached 15,506,224 and by Jan 1999, 21,910,869 - not too shabby for a group only three years old.  

The USGenWeb was one of, if not The, first project on the internet involving the continuing participation of a thousand or more individuals. In a sense, you could call it a forerunner of DMOZ, Wikipedia, and the other recent group projects.  

Since the number of other participants who actively contribute on the query boards and lists exceeds 1,000,000, it is also surely true that this is one of, if not The, largest single-interest group on the internet.  

=== To Answer Leland's Question About RootsWeb  ===

To reach the states sites or the special projects sites, start at the national site (http://www.usgenweb.org). To reach a state click on the state name on the left of the page. To reach the special projects, click on the Projects tab on the top of the page and then click on the special project you are interested in.  

*(1) "History of LISTSERV" http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-history.asp: 2006  

*(2) Karen Isaacson. "RootsWeb and USGenWeb Working Together for Genealogy on the Internet." National Genealogical Society Computer Interest Group; Volume 17 Number 5 September/October 1998. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/articles/6.htm. 2006

Authors Notes:  

:Although are many bits &amp; pieces of information (along with lots of rumors and myths) on the early days of the Project, I've never been able to find a complete history of its beginning. Much of the information in this article was found on the web and in list archives however, I'm indebted to several people who made available old emails, old files, shared with me their memories and read, corrected and made suggestions though out the writing process: John Rigdon, Larry Stephens, Betsy Mills, Joy Fisher, Ellen Pack, Linda Lewis, Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson.

Organization is by state and county. Some state projects has state-level special projects.  

*[http://www.fgs-project.com/ The USGenWeb Family Group Sheet Project]

*[http://www.aagriots.org// The USGenWeb African American Griots Project]  

*[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~usgwkidz/ The USGenWeb Kidz Project]  

*[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lineage/ The USGenWeb Lineage Project]  

*[http://www.usgwarchives.net/church/ The Church Records Project]  

The projects outside of The USGenWeb Project. Both call themselves The USGenWeb Census Project but neither are affiliated with The USGenWeb Project.  

[[Category:United_States]] [[Category:USGenWeb]]