Becoming a COGenWeb Volunteer

How Can You Participate?

One thing COGenWeb volunteers have in common is a desire to share valuable genealogical and historical information with others. Being an COGenWeb volunteer may be done on several different levels.
County Coordinators:
The county coordinator is the foundation of the COGenWeb. Our County Coordinators (CC) manage & maintain the county web sites. Our CCs come from different backgrounds, are all ages, and live anywhere there is access to the internet. The only prerequisites to volunteering as a county coordinator in Colorado, is having a sincere interest in the genealogy of the county you coordinate, and the ability to use basic HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to maintain a website. Additionally, our volunteers provide basic assistance to researchers, locate & transcribe data, and format data submitted by other contributors.
Learning website maintenance is easier than it may appear to be. One you join our team, when you have questions, there is always someone who is happy to share tips or help.
Go here for some links to help you learn HTML

If you are interested in adopting a Colorado County, please contact our State Coordinator.

Information Gathering:

- You can volunteer to gather information from your county
, or counties close to you. If you do not have internet access, you can get copies and mail them to the county coordinator via snail mail. Just contact the CC for that particular county.
- Lookups from local sources or from written material.
- Volunteer to do research in public records that are available in the area where you live, or from books, etc, available to you.
- To Volunteer for "Information Gathering," Transcribing, or to do Lookups, Please contact either the Individual County Coordinator or one of the Assistant Coordinators.

• Special Projects:
  We have several Special Projects in the works that can use some help: Take a look at the items below, and you may find some of interest. Right now, we have a need for volunteers to obtain census records from different areas and old photographs of places and/or people of Colorado. We especially have a need for people that can do translations of documents written in other languages into English.

•  Transcribers
  The Census Project, Tombstone Project, and the Digital Archives Project can always use transcribers.

• Typing
  County Coordinators are constantly finding new material to post to their county pages, but find they could use some help in getting the material typed up and onto the computer for coding and posting to their pages. You could volunteer to type the material into the computer (at your home, and email the file to the coordinator, that way it is already on the computer, then the coordinator can code it and upload it to the web).

• Walk a cemetery
  County Coordinators are always interested in receiving information for their county. You can walk your local cemetery recording the names and dates from the headstones and noting the location of the headstone (plot/gravesite) and submit them to the coordinator for posting. These can also be used in the Tombstone Project. A suggestion: Some people use their local Girl Scout or Boy Scout troops to do this, it makes a great community project for the kids and helps us as well.  
  

Are you a new Volunteer Coordinator? Welcome to the COGenWeb Project! 
**  Guidelines for New (and seasoned) Coordinators  **

FAQ's

• Tips for researching
    Notice: We welcome members of Historical and/or Genealogical Societies that wish to host a County in the COGenWeb Project. As always, links to from your Genealogical or Historical Society are permitted and encouraged.
   
    A great online resource is the USGenWeb's New Member Survival Guide. This is full of general information about the USGenWeb Project, what the structure of the project is, definitions, and all around good information that will help you understand who we are, how we came to be, what our goals are, and helpful resources to help get you started.
  First off, it is important to remember that we are all volunteers here. Being a volunteer means that that you will not be paid or expect payment for what you do. All information that has been put onto the COGenWeb pages is done by volunteers. As volunteers, we are in no way compensated for the work we do, other than the "Thank you's" we receive from people we have been able to help.

•  Code of Conduct:
  As volunteers for the COGenWeb Project, we adhere to a strict code of conduct
  in our dealings with the public and with each other.
  
  We refrain from using any profanity on our web pages, in our emails, or on any list we may be on.We do not promote pornography in any way. We do not use derogatory statements at any time. If we have a problem with anyone, we try to be as polite as possible, whether dealing with the public or with another volunteer. Whenever we have problems that cannot be resolved, we go to the SC or an ASC for assistance.  

•   The Policy:
  When you volunteer to coordinate a county for any of the State Projects within the USGenWeb, you do so knowing it is for the USGenWeb Projects, and the many visitors to that county. The USGenWeb has certain requirements that are required to be on your county pages. States can, and do, impose additional requirements and guidelines. To volunteer to coordinate a County in the COGenWeb, it must be with the understanding that you will adhere to these Requirements and guidelines. The following link is mainly for new county coordinators. However, it may be helpful, once in a while, for those of us who are "oldtimers" to refresh our memories. The following link is mainly for new county coordinators. However, it may be helpful, once in a while, for those of us who are "oldtimers" to refresh our memories.

• Don't get overwhelmed!
  When you first adopt a county, the "rules and reg's" can seem a bit daunting. On this page, we are outlining what our requirements are, but don't let the length of the page scare you. There is more description here than requirements! To make it easier for you, we are breaking the page up into sections. Questions? Confused? Contact our State Coordinator.

•  How Many Counties Can I adopt??
  While it is not a COGenWeb rule, it is the SC/ASC current practice to limit the number a CC can adopt in order to minimize the impact of a single volunteer's departure from the project. While it is not a COGenWeb rule, it is the SC/ASC current practice to limit the number a CC can adopt in order to minimize the impact of a single volunteer's departure from the project.

•   Is There a State Mailing List?
  Yes. As a COGenWeb volunteer, you must be a member of our state mailing list. This list is a closed one, which means the SC (or Asst.. SC) will have to subscribe you to the list. We use gmail for our Coordinators Mail List. You do not have to have a gmail email address to be a member and participate on this list.

•   Where do I put my website? Is is free or do I have to pay for space on the web?
  We offer free hosting on our server to COGenWeb County Coordinators. As the owner of your web site, you have the option of establishing your web site on any server. Project web sites are hosted by a variety of servers, many of them free of charge. Contact our State Coordinator about what options are available to you. If you are changing an existing web site, check with our State Coordinator about what our state guidelines are regarding removing any currently posted information.

• What is Recommended for software for HTML editing? Rebecca Maloney recommends using Expression Web 4 to edit webpages and CORE ftp LE to upload and download pages. She can help you learn both of the programs and they are offered to download free. Betty Baker offers a template to use which can be located here.

•   What is Required County Site Content?
  Logos: One of our approved, COGenWeb logos, along with one of the officially approved USGenWeb official logos, must be prominently placed on your home page. "Prominent" is defined as standing out; readily noticeable; conspicuous, per Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I recommend it be used as a link, the logo or the name of the USGenWeb Project must link directly back to the USGenWeb Project index page at https://www.usgenweb.org. See https://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/index.html
  
  Graphics must be in the standard formats, .gif, .jpg (.jpeg), .png, so that all browsers can view them.
  County Coordinator's Name and Email - it is required that visitors know right away who is the County Coordinator. We suggest that you put a short paragraph of introduction at or near the top of your index page. We require your name and email to be displayed prominently on the index page of your site
  
  You should be courteous, quick to respond and assist your visitors to the best of your ability. You aren't required to do research for your visitors but you do need to point them in the direction of finding answers.
  
  Also include a method of contacting the SC or ASC (their names and email addresses written out or you can use a text image. This is strongly suggested by USGenWeb, not just our personal preference

•   What is Recommended County Site Content
   
  COGenWeb Archives Index: http://usgwarchives.org/co/cofiles.htm 
  USGenWeb Archives Index: http://usgwarchives.org
  USGenWeb Special Projects at https://www.usgenweb.org/about/projects.html
  A search engine for your site. There are several free ones that are easy to add, such as Freefind (http://freefind.com). * Remind the State Coordinator and she can transfer the current freefind search engine to your email for maintenance.

•   What is Optional County Content?
  There is an optional Colorado outline map that you can get and color in your county. You can find it on our logo page.

• Optional Links:
  Colorado County Evolution: https://cogenweb.org/coplaces/colorado-county-evolution.htm
  COKids Project: https://cogenweb.org/cokids/
  Colorado Military Pages: https://www.cogenweb.org/specialprojects/military.html
  Guidelines for Archive Submission: http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/contacts.htm

•   What are Considered Best Practices?
  Your county pages should be updated on a regular basis and the updated date noted on the bottom of your pages (This page last updated on. . .). Link all major pages in your site to your index page. Additional linked pages may be accessed through your main pages.  You can find JavaScript codes with automatic date updates to use at www.usgenweb.org

• Page Evaluation-Sweeps
  As new county pages are put up they will be checked by the State Coordinator or Assistant State Coordinator(s) for the required elements and to be sure your links work. We will let you know when they have visited your page. If there are any problems with links or if any of the required elements missing, we let you know so you can make any changes or corrections that are needed. Post a message to the Colorado County Coordinators mail list or to the State Coordinator when your pages are ready.
  
  We will also periodically check all the County pages for the same types of problems. When we do, we will send you an email to let you know what needs to be fixed. If the problems are not corrected in a reasonable time frame, you will be contacted again..

• Finally many of us came to this state, or the USGenWeb, looking for our ancestors. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be able to adopt the very county we are/were searching in. It is understandable that we would want to further our search for our own ancestors while coordinating that very county. However, your primary function as a County Coordinator is to find local data and format it in such a way as to be available to visiting researchers.

• 
  Prohibitions (Thou Shalt Nots!)

• We are Non-Profit
  The USGenWeb Projects, of which the COGenWeb Project is a part of, is a Non-Profit entity. In other words we put this information up for FREE access by all, 24 hrs. a day, and 7 days a week. No one will be charged for any of the efforts by the Coordinators, as hosts to a county in the COGenWeb Project. If you should come across someone who is charging for access to their COGenWeb county page/s, we would like to know about it.
  There are to be no money requests posted including: unnecessary advertisements (some servers require an ad on it, we am NOT talking about them! they are considered necessary), or requests for donations to help fund the costs of the page or the time you spend on said pages. If you have someone that does research, and charges a fee for services, please make sure there is a notation that the person is an independent researcher and not affiliated with USGW or COGenWeb. The above restrictions do not mean that you cannot ask for reimbursement for your out of pocket expenses, like copying & mailing fees, etc. The latter should be noted on the lookups page and not on the main page.

• No Profanity, pornography, or political icons and statements, are allowed on any of our pages.

• Copyright Infringement:
  Our goal is to provide free information but we must do it legally. No matter how tempting it is to upload useful data to our county pages, we must avoid copyright infringement. Copyright is ownership of the author, creator or publisher of a given work. Copyright gives the owner the right to benefit from his/her labor.
  To avoid copyright infringement, follow these four basic rules:
  Public records, such as cemetery transcriptions, vital records, school records, etc. are not copyrightable. However, the format in which they are presented can be copyrighted, so be careful.
  Public records, such as cemetery transcriptions, vital records, school records, etc. are not copyrightable. However, the format in which they are presented can be copyrighted, so be careful.
  
  Any use of a work that diminishes its market value constitutes copyright infringement.
  
  Obtain written authorization from the copyright holder to avoid committing copyright infringement.  
  Still in doubt? Here is the USGenWeb Copyright Policy. https://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.html

 

To our incredible community of past volunteers, we want to extend our deepest gratitude for the tireless dedication and passion you have brought to our genealogy projects. Your collective efforts in transcribing records, indexing archives, and documenting family histories have breathed life into the past, making it accessible for generations to come. Each name you've recorded and every connection you've uncovered serves as a vital bridge between families and their heritage. We are profoundly grateful for the countless hours you’ve contributed; your work is not just a collection of data, but a lasting legacy of preservation and discovery.

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