The USGenWeb Project began in March 1996 when a group of genealogists organized the Kentucky Comprehensive
Genealogy Database Project. The plan was to collect data and resources on a county-centered basis that would be
helpful to genealogists. The interest generated by Kentucky's success was widespread and many people in many states were interested in doing something similar. In June, as the Kentucky
Project was nearing completion, a decision was made to go nationwide. The USGenWeb Project was born. Volunteers
were found who were willing to coordinate the collection of county pages for a state page and they, in turn,
recruited county coordinators.
As of mid-April 1997, 84% of the 3,109 counties in the US had a USGenWeb page up and running! There are now
about 2,000 volunteers contributing their time to this project. Queries are coming in at the rate of about 12,000 per
week and more than two million names have been indexed. The Archives now contain more than 75,000 pages of
primary documents.
There are many ways that YOU can contribute to this wonderful project. You can donate records of all sorts---Bible records, census data, county records-----all data useful to genealogists is most needed. If you have data to contribute, or if you would like to donate some time to the project, please contact the coordinator responsible for maintaining the appropriate county site. If you would like to help out by hosting a county page for
one of the counties not yet adopted, contact the State Coordinator for that state. You can also contribute by participating in the
Tombstone Inscription Project and the
US Census Project. We are in need of scanners and typists to convert records that have been donated.