1. New and Prospective County Coordinators and Assistant County Coordinators need to read the contents of this page. If you have any Questions regarding these procedures, don't hesitate to ask questions. Upon receiving a County Assignment, you will be accountable for compliance with these instructions.

2. Look on the County Selection List to see if the county you are interested in is available. If so, go to the next step. If not, consider volunteering to assist the person who coordinates that county.

3. Read the US GenWeb Project County rules posted at
http://usgenweb.org/volunteers/scccguidelines.html and make sure you will be able to meet the requirements. They are simple enough and we will work with you to help.

4. Read The FLGenWeb Project (member of USGenWeb) rules below.

5. If you have read all these long boring rules and have decided "Yep, I can do this," please contact the state coordinator.

Florida Rules

Please take a moment to read The FLGenWeb Requirements:

Make sure you meet these elements for Florida and all of the USGenWeb required elements.

1) Adopting a county means it is a part of The USGenWeb Project. Some people adopt counties only to promote their family genealogy or genealogical society. This is not the purpose of the US GenWeb Project or the FLGenWeb Project and pages of this type will not be accepted.

You may include your family genealogy on your pages, but it may not be the primary focus of the page. Providing research information about the COUNTY is the primary focus. Visitors should know it is a USGenWeb Project/FLGenWeb Project page and not a family page or a Genealogical or Historical Society site.

The name of your page should be something like Pasco County, Florida, FLGenWeb Project or FLGenWeb Project: Pasco County, Florida, and not "Jones Family Genealogy" or "Smith County Genealogical Society."

2) All county pages are required to:

A) Display the official project names, links and logos near the top of your main county page. The logos do not have to appear on each page of your site, but must be on the main page.

   1. The national project is called The USGenWeb Project. USGenWeb logos are here: http://usgenweb.org/volunteers/logos.html
   2. The state project is The FLGenWeb Project.  

B) Provide a link to the USGenWeb The FLGenWeb site on every county or project web site per USGenWeb Guidelines   This is the link for The FLGenWeb site: http://usgenwebsites.org/flgenweb/
 

3) All County Coordinators. Assistant County Coordinators, Project Managers and their Assistants MUST subscribe to The FLGenWeb Project group. All matters regarding the project will be posted and discussed here. Due to the large number of counties and coordinators involved, the state coordinator cannot always email each of you individually when changes or messages need to be relayed, so this list is a VITAL link in keeping everyone informed. This group is NOT for posting of queries, but is for USGenWeb and The FLGenWeb Project business and site development discussion.  You will be automatically subscribed to it and to The USGenWeb Project Announcement list.

4) Volunteers to sponsor County sites should have their pages online within a reasonable amount of time. We don't expect your site to appear within a day or a week, but after one month you should at least have a basic page online. You can always go back later and add more when you have time. If after one month the basic pages are not up, we will need to re-assign the county. It is not fair to make researchers or other volunteers wait for a county site to go online for much longer than a month.

Should a special situation arise, such as waiting for account setup from an ISP, or a server problem or a family crisis, we understand this and will work with you so long as you LET US KNOW you are having difficulty. Otherwise, if another volunteer is waiting, we will need to give them the opportunity to get the page online. It has been proven in the past that volunteers who did not have time to get their pages online also did not have time to maintain the site once it was up.

5) County Coordinators shall be required to check in with the State Coordinator or designated representative each month. Any County Coordinator failing to check in two consecutive months, will be subject to Advisory Board Review and may have their county being reassigned. It is the responsibility of each County Coordinator to notify the State Coordinator of changes in their e-mail address. It is also advisable if you're going away for an extended time period, post a vacation sign on your county main page.

6) Special Projects within The FLGenWeb Project may have additional requirements.

Copyright

The USGenWeb Project and The FLGenWeb Project policy prohibits lookup volunteers from infringing on copyrights. We will not condone, defend or be held responsible for violations of law committed by said volunteers. You may review the USGenWeb policy on copyright at: http://usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.html

A link to the USGenWeb copyright policy should be included on your lookup page.

If you see a book listed for lookups which you hold the copyright to and do not want it included in the Project listings, please contact The FLGenWeb Project State Coordinator and/or the County Coordinator immediately.

USGenWeb Project Rules

There are a few basic requirements that every county page must meet in order to be associated with our project and be included on the Master County Index Page for a state. These requirements may be found HERE. (The link will open in a new window)

Please remember that USGenWeb Project and The FLGenWeb Project are dedicated to providing FREE genealogical help to visitors to the sites. You may not CHARGE for lookups or SELL information to visitors. A page on your site dedicated to providing information about the local Genealogical Society may list publications for sale if your server allows it, but it must be made clear that the GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY is the seller, not The FLGenWeb Project or USGenWeb Project. We do NOT CHARGE for our services.

Building your FLGenWeb Project Site

OK, you've decided to join us and take a county...NOW what do you do? How do you build your pages, where do you find graphics, how can you get some html help?

Here are a few links where you can find help for some of those things!

Color Maker
This nifty little utility will allow you to "try out" color schemes for your page AND gives you the html code to place on your page..you just copy and paste the code and the colors are yours!

Frame Shop
While some folks don't like frames on their pages, some do. This tool, from the same people who brought you Color Maker, takes the hassle out of making frame sections for your pages.

Table Maker
Probably the easiest way to make tables for your data...easy to use, great results...a GREAT tool!

Cyndi's List Genealogy Website Creation
This site provides a listing of just about everything you need to know to build a great genealogy site! Links to graphics, HTML helpers, free home pages, guestbooks, counters, the WORKS! An added plus is her "outline" of what makes a good page; things to include, things NOT to do. It's a GREAT place to begin your journey into the wide world of "webmasters!"