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 a proud part of the USGenWeb Archives History of the USGenWeb Census Project, a proud part of the USGenWeb Archives |
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| In February, 1997, Linda Russell Lewis, the Archives coordinator asked the
archivists for a volunteer to head up a census transcription project with the goal of getting
every census transcribed and in the USGenWeb Archives for free access. Ken Hollingsworth
answered that call and transcribers were recruited. The original goal was to complete the
1850 census transcriptions, but the overwhelming response from volunteers resulted in all years
being included. The census coordinator's task was to organize the project, recruit volunteers,
and train them. The files were to be uploaded to the USGenWeb Archives, following the Archives
guidelines.
Software was developed, Census Transcription Assistant (CTA), by John Rigdon for 1850, which would produce a standardized text file and a database to be used for future census studies and with a search engine that would point to the actual images that would be online in the Archives. A few months later, Phil Beshear developed Census Abstract Retrieval Tool (CART), which produces text, database, and html, and covers several years. Ken Hollingsworth resigned in February of 1998 and Kay Mason was appointed to take his coordinator position. In October 1998, census images were added. This is explained on the USGenWeb Archives Census Images Table of Contents. In mid-November 1998 Kay Mason renamed the project The USGenWeb Census Project and moved it out from under the USGenWeb Archives. In December 1998, Stacey Orchard began the process of rebuilding the USGenWeb Archives Census pages so that our original goals could continue to be pursued. In place since February 1997, these goals remain the transcription of census records in a standard format in order to make them available to genealogical researchers on the Internet. The completed transcriptions are being stored in the USGenWeb Archives for the benefit of the entire genealogical community. On April 19, 1999, Stacey Orchard resigned and Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman was appointed to fill that position. On December 19, 1999, CenTrans was released for beta testing. CenTrans is a census transcription tool written by Bill Husler for use in the USGenWeb Archives Census Project. It is a filemaker program and is available for both Macintosh and Windows. Once the beta testing for the years 1850, 1880, 1910, and 1920 is completed, all years will be made available. Beginning November 1998, the USGenWeb Census Project (which has now come under the leadership of Ronald Eason) uploaded completed transcriptions to a directory outside the umbrella of the USGenWeb Archives, but the USGenWeb Archives was also able to upload copies of the transcriptions (just as the Census Project pages had promised to transcribers during this period of time). On May 1, 2000, however, the USGenWeb Census Project announced that they had moved their project to a different server. They also declared that future census transcriptions could no longer be uploaded to the USGenWeb Archives. Later that day it was discovered that The USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. had been registered as a FOR PROFIT corporation in the state of Michigan. On May 4, 2000, the USGenWeb Project National Coordinator announced that the USGenWeb Advisory Board had severed all connections with the group calling themselves the USGenWeb Census Project and/or the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. (although the incorporation was apparently dissolved by this time). On May 18, 2000, the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. was again incorporated as a non-profit organization. |