MTGenWeb Project encourages individuality on it's web sites! Currently, we have all of the counties online from previous coordinators' or put up by our Orphan County Coordinator. You'll be allowed to copy those pages at first if you wish, and then change them however you wish after that.

If you're new to html, there are many good sites to help you out.  Once you begin to learn the basics, you'll find it fun to use your creativity and "do your own thing"!

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REQUIREMENTS

The USGenWeb Project and the MTGenWeb Project have only a few basic requirements which have been designed to provide some conformity within the project:

1. Under By-Laws adopted July, 1998, our official name is the "USGenWeb Project", with upper and lower case as shown. The state projects are all named "XXGenWeb Project".

2. A MTGenWeb Project mailing list, MTGEN-L, has been created and it is mandatory for each host to subscribe to it and read the postings. The purpose of the mailing list will be to provide updates and announcements to volunteers so that they can keep abreast of the latest developments in the USGenWeb Project, ask questions, etc. Instructions for subscribing to this list will be forwarded to new volunteers.

   Optional: Subscribing to the USGenWeb-All mailing list allows you to informally discuss issues of importance to the USGenWeb Project. It is a very busy list and discussions can get 'hot and heavy', so you'll need to try it out to see if this list is for you.

3. Each county page must have a pointer to link to the MTGenWeb Project State Page. The URL is: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtgenweb.

4. Each county page must have a pointer to link to the MTGenWeb Archives Table of Contents. The URL is: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/mt/mtfiles.htm
   It is suggested that you further encourage people to visit the archives by listing some of the files for your county that can be found there. It is also preferred that you offer a search engine on your county page that enables anyone visiting your county site to do a surname or topic search of the MTGenWeb Project Archives. The script for this search engine can be found on many county sites such as Teton, Fergus, Carbon, Musselshell. Simply change the county name to your own.

5. Each county site must also have a pointer to link to the MTGenWeb County Selection site

6. Every county web site must offer a Query Page. We prefer that you use an automated query system such as GenConnect; however, you have the option of having the queries emailed directly to you and manually posting each one. Please check out GenConnect and other automated systems. Most of our MTGenWeb Project CC's use GenConnect. The best feature of GenConnect is that every surname that is posted for a given query goes into an index that can be searched via a nation-wide search engine. This gives the query posters much more exposure for their queries than posting the queries only on your county site. If you decide to go to the extra work to receive and post the queries via email directly yourself, you may want to ask the submitter to put "XX County Query" in the subject line of their message to assist you in priortizing it.   It is preferred that you utilize one of the automated query systems such as:
      
       a - Ancestry/Rootsweb Message Boards
       b - GenForum

7. Whether or not you use the GenConnect Query system, we encourage you to link to the other county GenConnect boards... bio, obit, etc. Even if you don't personally choose to manage these boards yourself, please consider linking to them as they are very helpful to researchers. Since GenConnect maintains a GenConnect Query Board and all other boards for every county whether you choose to maintain it or not, there will be queries for your county posted on GenConnect Boards and you should help them to access it.

8. Originally, every county was required to have a page dedicated to providing the names and resources of volunteers willing to do lookups in their material. This requirement has been suspended, however, due to some possible problems with copyright infringements. You may list lookups on a Lookup Page only if you or your transcription volunteers have received permission from the author or publisher of the book to do so, or if the book or material is in the public domain and permission is not needed. A good alternative to a lookup page is a county bibliography page which provides a list of books and material available for your county, and where it can be found.

   It is strongly suggested that you put the following USGenWeb Official Policy statement at the top of any lookup page you should decide to create:

   "The USGenWeb Project will not tolerate any copyright violations. Lookup requests should be limited to one name, or perhaps two if it is a married couple. Information given will be minimal; for example if it is a cemetery lookup, the information given will consist of the name of the cemetery and the dates on the headstone. Please do not ask for 'everybody with X surname' or an entire family group, or for hardcopies to be mailed; the volunteers have been asked not to comply with such requests".

   "Our lookups will extend to searching a book to see if it would be helpful to you in your research. Should the book prove useful, we can provide the author's address and ordering information".

9. Your county GenWeb Project page must have the USGenWeb Project Logo on it, displayed in a prominent place. For now, the MTGenWeb Project name is required to be displayed prominently, but the Project Logo will be optional.

10. When a visitor to the MTGenWeb Project site desires to visit a county page, they should be able to click the link and go directly into your county site, not have to go through your personal home page. We have no objection, however, to a link to your personal home page being listed within the pages of your county site.

11. IT IS ESSENTIAL that your site be well-maintained and updated as frequently as possible. Every site needs to have some basic research resources, i.e. Courthouse offices addresses, phone numbers, fees, etc., library, historical society, newspaper, cemetery names & addresses, funeral homes, etc. Many have also provided a bibliography page showing reference books available for their county and much more. Your site needs to be checked often for bad links, new ideas, etc., and the update "date" changed. We do check these and inquire of county coordinators if we find sites that have not been updated within a month or so. If you are ill, going on vacation, or having some temporary problems, the State Coordinator would like to know and, of course, we make exceptions for those times.

    That's about it for the requirements. We like to keep the requirements down to the bare minimum, and thus your creativity to a maximum! As long as no one disregards the spirit of the Project on their pages, I think we'll all be pleased with the results.

OTHER HELPFUL ADDITIONS TO YOUR PAGES

Although not mandatory, placing the following links on your county pages is helpful to researchers:

WorldGenWeb Project

The URL is http://www.worldgenweb.org/

IS YOUR SITE READY TO GO?

As you finish getting the requirements on your county page and arrange to place it on a remote or local server, you will then be ready to have your link placed on the MtGenWeb site. Please e-mail me and I'll quickly check it out and get it linked. If there are any problems with your links, or required elements are missing or incorrect, I'll let you know so that you can correct the problem. By the way, while you are creating your page, there are many good sites from which to obtain icons, graphics, etc. free of charge. Please make sure that you follow the proper procedure in obtaining permission to use any graphics, backgrounds, etc. that are not specifically placed for public use. It is also a great idea to ask before linking to someone's site!

ABOUT THE USGenWeb PROJECT ARCHIVES

We soon hope to have many volunteers transcribing records as described in How You Can Help.

• Records may be submitted to the free USGenWeb Project archive or
• Records can be published on a page within a county or state site, or
• Records placed on a transcriber's home page may be linked from the proper county or state page.

If you browse through the USGenWeb Project Archives Table of Contents you can see the huge amount of data that has been accumulated in the archives. Some county coordinators prefer to keep the data on their sites, or linked directly to their site from an individual's personal page. Many servers, however, do not allow space for large databases, and the archives is the best choice.

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ARCHIVES

1. Will the USGenWeb Project Archive ever charge money for the data we submit?

   • The USGenWeb Project and Rootweb have continued to emphasize the fact that the goal and purpose of this project is to provide free research data and resources to the genealogical community. There are no plans to charge money now or in the future for access to data stored in the archives.

   Can I copy any book or material and submit it to the archives?

   • No copyrighted material can ever be submitted to the archives, unless it is being submitted by the person owning the copyright and is accompanied by written permission for use in the archives

2. Is there anything to assure me that the material I submit won't be copied by another site on the web and sold to genealogists doing research?

   • Unfortunately, no. In fact it seems that at least one well-known genealogy site may have stolen some of the USGenWeb Project Archives and are charging for access to the material on their site. We are hoping that this will be combated in two ways:

     1) As our project grows in popularity, researchers will discover for themselves that they can get the data free through the USGenWeb Project pages and they will boycott those sites.

     2) Files that are uploaded contain the contributor's name, the fact that they contributed it for use in USGenWeb Archives, and a notice that says (and some file managers vary it):

     "USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation."

     It is my suggestion that all volunteers see that this message is on their page, and perhaps add a statement that the file remains in the ownership of [contributor's name] and or is copyright by [contributor's name, date]. Public facts such as census records, marriage indexes, etc., of course, are in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted. Any original material created by an individual may be copyrighted

3. How do I transcribe and submit material?

   Simply transcribe the data in such a way that it can be saved as a text file. Contact the state coordinator and you will be given instructions as to how to submit the document.

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