An Internet resource that I have not mentioned lately is the USGenWeb Project. This project began as an idea by a man named Jeff Murphy about 1996 as a way to gather important information and data for genealogists into one web site for Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Jeff was quickly joined by others to do the same in each county of Kentucky. As word spread others jumped in to begin other state projects and in early 1996, the USGenWeb Project was in a race to see which state would be first to have a county coordinator for every county in the state.
Around April of 1996, I read an interview of Jeff Murphy in Everton's web page via AOL, I was very impressed and volunteered to be a county coordinator for LaRue Co, KY that was available. I did not know anything about creating & maintaining web sites (I often stated that I did not know my FTP from my HTML). I was taught in about 4 weeks how to make web pages all by email from Holly Fee Timm. It did not take long for every state to have a County Coordinator (CC) for every county in the United States. Although there are some minimum standards required for each county, the CC's put up data as they submit and other researchers submit. So, the information for each county is significantly different. Besides data, you often can learn where to research in the county, hours for the library or courthouse, maybe a list of the cemeteries (sometimes including photos of the tombstones), etc.
Now, that every county is online, the goal is to keep them updated. The project has always been free to all researchers and will remain that way.
Here are links to the project:
USGenWeb Project - http://www.usgenweb.org/
ILGenWeb Project - http://ilgenweb.net/
INGenWeb Project - http://www.ingenweb.org/
KYGenWeb Project - http://www.kygenweb.net/
- Compiled by JGWest
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