Obtaining web space for your county page:

RootsWeb offers free web space for USGenWeb pages and provides some useful tools, scripts and other enhancements that you can use. If the county site you are adopting is not currently on Rootsweb, and you want to move it there, contact the NCGenWeb State Coordinator.

There are many other options for web space as well, and you are free to choose whichever one best suits your needs. You may be allotted free webspace as part of your personal account with your Internet Service Provider (AOL, Earthlink, Mindspring, @Home, for example, provide certain amounts of free webspace to their clients).

To find recent listings of free webspace providers, try running a search for "free webspace" on one of the major internet search engines.

Remember in choosing a site that your page will be getting many visitors, and you will want sufficient web space to develop a substantial site.

As a CC for NCGenWeb, you are required to subscribe to the NCGENWEB e-mail list. This is our internal forum, and the only means by which the state coordinator can reach all the project coordinators at once.

The following guidelines are based on the bylaws of the USGenWeb Project, the USGenWeb guidelines for local pages, and past votes and discussion by the NCGenWeb county coordinators.

• A brief history of the county, including if appropriate a link to the home page for the parent county from which it was formed.
• A map showing the location of the county within the state.
• A link to the appropriate county page in the NCGenWeb Archives Project
• Links to other NCGenWeb special projects pages, and/or to our consolidated list of North Carolina resources (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncgenweb/projects.html)
• Addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information for the local county courthouse, public library, historical or genealogical society
• Lists of researchers for specific surnames in your county
• Names of volunteers who will do lookups in local resources
• Links to the home pages for neighboring counties

If you look up information for people in published material, then you need to be aware of the copyright laws and USGenWeb's policy concerning copyrighted material. If you have volunteers doing lookups for you, they need to be aware of the policy, too.

It is unethical to repost material from another web site without permission of the author. Use a link instead.

Likewise, graphics, backgrounds, scripts and HTML code developed by others should not be used without permission of their creators. The USGenWeb guidelines point out that this prohibition also applies to pages of links that others have put together.

Most genealogical records (census, marriage bonds, court records etc.) are in the public domain and can be posted to your web site. However, if someone else has transcribed these records, or compiled them into an edited collection, that transcription or compilation is protected by copyright and you should not post it verbatim without permission. You may however make a new transcription or compilation of the original records.

Copyright to queries and any other data submitted your site resides with the submitter.

If you leave the USGenWeb project at some time in the future, material contributed to your county page, including queries that have been posted, should be turned over to the next coordinator.

We understand that our volunteers have jobs, families, and other commitments. Much as we'd love to have you working on your page every day, we know that's not a realistic expectation. On the other hand, our end users appreciate it when web sites continue to develop with new information, and they complain to us when sites are neglected. We therefore offer the following guidelines for page maintenance:

If you're not using an automated query-posting system, then try to post new queries at least every two weeks. And if there's likely to be a delay, please let submitters know that it may be a few days before they see their query on the web.

Do something to your page at least every 6 to 8 weeks. Add a new link, collect some information, whatever. If you don't have time to do even this much, then this project has probably become a burden, not a pleasure, and you should consider letting the page go to another host.

If we find through whatever means - inspection, user complaints, etc. - that a page has been totally unattended for three months or more, and if repeated efforts to contact you by e-mail have failed, then yes, we will move it to a new host.

Please consider putting a "this page was updated on -----" message on your home page. This is a courtesy to your repeat visitors. If they come back to check your site periodically, they'd like to know if there's anything new.

Finally, a suggestion from a fellow CC:

It is strongly advised that all county coordinators maintain a good sense of humor. It will get you through a lot! ;-)