Volunteer Information
Basic
Requirements to be an Alberta GenWeb volunteer:|
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Volunteer Information
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The desire to create the page is the most important ingredient. The available free software caters to everyone from the HTML veteran to folks who don't know HTML and don't want to. If your provider does not give you free webpage space, or you want to save it for another use, space is available at a number of sites on the web at no charge. Geocities offers free webspace up to 2 meg which is more than sufficient for this purpose. There are always people available to help and advise, I've found the internet much friendlier than my own home town....but if you ask for the advice, please be as specific about the problem as you possibly can. Because of the need for more mail, asking for detail, help is much slower in coming if you start off with "it doesn't work, how do I fix it" than if you say "when I do a specific thing, this other thing happens--how do I make it do thing X instead?"
Creating your page.
There are two required and two optional pages involved in the Alberta GenWeb county "page." The two required pages are the home page and the lookups page. Optional additions are the query page, and a surname page. You have several options in creating the page: starting from scratch, or capturing an existing page and modifying it. You may capture pages such as the ones I created for the Alberta GenWeb and modify them. I give free permission to copy my pages; if you want to copy someone else's, it's polite to ask first. You will need to keep the Canada GenWeb logo near the top of your page as well as the Alberta GenWeb logo. You can capture either one off the main Alberta GenWeb page. The use of the Alberta flag is optional. You will want to compile all the useful snail mail resources to your list that you can find; if you don't live in or near the county you are hosting, and your local public library doesn't have a phone book for it, you may wish to write to the local genealogical society and ask them what addresses they recommend you list for folks researching in that county. For links, the AlbertaGenWeb, CanadaGenWeb, and WorldGenWeb links are required, although you should feel free to change format, location on page, that sort of stuff. You'll want to do a search on the net for possible pertinent links for your county; try searching as XXX County AB, XXX County Alberta, XXX County Alberta Genealogy, and possibly even just XXX Alberta. If you have any large cities or towns in your county, you may wish to search for them as well.
Updating.
You will be responsible for keeping your site as up to date as possible, the net changes daily so you will need to stay on top of changing links and new sites of interest for your county. This, of course, is the most difficult part of being a co-ordinator.
Now, after all of that, if you're still interested in becoming a county coordinator please e-mail me!! I'll look forward to hearing from you!