U.S. GenWeb Project

The USGenWeb Project is a website that is run by a team of volunteers. Together, they are working on providing free genealogy websites that are relevant to every county and state in the United States of America. I learned that the USGenWeb Project also sponsors special projects, in addition to this website. Some of their many projects include the USGenWeb African American Griots Project, the USGenWeb Kidz Project, and the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project, to name a few.

To begin using this website, you need to select a state. You can either use the drop down box, or the list of links that appears on the side of the page. I decided to see what information I could find on my father, so I selected Illinois, the state he lives in, to begin my search. This brings me to the webpage for The ILGenWeb Project. Now, I am confused. I see several links to choose from, but am unsure which one I should start with. It isn’t very clear. I decide to narrow down my search by using the drop down box to select the county in Illinois my father lives in.

This brings me to the USGenWeb Genealogy website for the county I selected. I click the link that says “search”, and this brings me to another page, where there is a search engine I can use. I type my father’s first, middle, and last name into the box, and hope for the best. The result shows me a person who has the same surname as my father, but not the same first name. This person lived in a place that happens to be the same as my father’s middle name. I am rather disappointed by this result. All that clicking around, and I didn’t find what I was looking for! There is an option to “refine” the search, but, unfortunately, this gives me the same irrelevant result.

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