Most genealogists have this in common – The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.
So far we have discussed RAOGK.org, Rootsweb Books We Own (BWO), Obituary Lookup Volunteers and Obituary Depot.
The subject of today’s volunteer manned resource is The USGenWeb Project. If you’ve never heard of or used this resource before, you’ve been missing out on a veritable Gold mine of genealogical information. The The USGenWeb was established in 1996 and is now one of the larger repositories of all volunteer genealogical and historical data on the internet. The information there is organized by State and then county. You can either choose a county of interest from an alphabetized list or a map.
Because different volunteers oversee the layout and information on each state and county website, it’s impossible to know exactly what you will discover, but the search time almost always proves worthwhile. County websites may contain some of the following:
* Wills or other Probate Documents
* Birth, Death or Marriage Records
* Census Transcriptions
* Lookup Volunteers
* Town and County Histories
* Biographical Sketches of long time residents
* Cemetery Lists
* Headstone Transcriptions
* Addresses of local resources
Those are just some of the resources you may be able to find on your county page of interest.
The website is completely free to use and volunteer opportunities are always available. If you have information to submit to a particular county page (will, obituary, etc.), all that is needed is to email the county coordinator. Their email address is provided on the page.
In addition to the State and County pages, the USGenWeb has some wide spread projects going on, again all volunteer based. Perhaps the most well known of these is the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project. In the website’s own words:
We need to record these tombstone inscriptions now—before they are lost forever to the winds and the rains. Though many cemeteries have already been recorded by various Genealogical Societies, just as many have not. And, of those recorded, how accessible is that data to the world? If we join together and do this recording, we will guarantee that our ancestors an not forgotten—-that their memorials will live on so that future generations may remember then as well as we do.
can be found here
There is a wealth of information available on this site provided by the service of others. If you are able to add to that service by submitting your own family information for distant relatives who seek it, you will be doing a great thing indeed.
“Carry on! We’ve got a lot of work to do, a tremendous responsibility. We’ve barely scratched the surface…I hope we can be increasingly recognized as men and women of goodwill who want to make of the world a better place” -Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Deseret News, Feb. 25, 2000
