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"North to the Future"
Do you have access to a book of Alaskan genealogical records? Please consider volunteering to do look-ups.
Are you a typist willing to do some transcription work from online records, newspapers, or books?
Several Borough/Census Area websites are available for adoption. You could adopt an available borough/Census Area. Or, you could volunteer to be a Temporary Coordinator, which would keep the Borough/Census Area up for adoption. See the list on the Home page to find an available Borough/Census Area.
You should have an interest in history and genealogy and a willingness to learn more about your Borough/Census Area.
You should be willing to allocate a few minutes each month to touch base with your site and remain active.
You should have a computer and internet access. It is helpful to know a little about maintaining a website. The State Coordinators can help you learn to post your materials. It's fun and it's easy! AKGenWeb Borough sites are hosted at no charge on the AKGenWeb.
Volunteers are expected to check-in when a Roll Call is issued. This is to check that everyone is doing well, and that you are still interested in keeping your site current. We have an AKGenWeb group for this purpose. Please use it to keep each other updated.
Your name, as coordinator, and email address must be displayed on your homepage. You are expected to respond to inquiries within a reasonable timeframe (one week).
Detailed USGenWeb Guidelines for Coordinators are to be followed. You will be adopting a website that is already in place. Your Borough/Census Area website should have all the required items, such as
Remember, the AKGenWeb is a non-commercial site. No advertisements are allowed. USGenWeb is "Land of the Free... Genealogy." You could provide a link to another site that does advertise. For example if there is someone who will research records for a small fee, you could provide a link to that person's site.
We try to give thanks to everyone who provides information. For example, if someone sends you a photo and you post it, you should add something like "courtesy of Jane Doe" next to the photo.
We try to avoid copyright infringments, see USGenWeb Copyright Policy
We try to protect the privacy of the living.
How much time you spend handling your borough is up to you. You will get an occasional email from someone with a question. The real time is spent when you decide to transcribe some new information and post it. You should expect, when you first take over a Borough, to put in a little extra time, because you will be gathering new information such as where deeds are recorded, what is the history of the Borough, and what cemeteries are within the Borough. You will be doing a bit of googling for this info. But you decide how much time, not us.
You can expand/adapt the existing site, or create a new design for your borough. You can choose your colors, your borough logo, your theme, your fonts, and how you want things organized. You decide on the material you put on the pages. You can add bells and whistles or keep your pages simple. Each borough is different and may be treated differently.
What kinds of things should you post on your website? Gosh, there are lots of goodies. Historical information, newspaper articles, biographies of local ancestors, census-availability for your Borough, cemeteries - where are they and burial lists. Build a bibliography of books that are useful for researching the area. Land records, vital records, old photos can be posted. Old Church membership lists are useful. Photograph tombstones in an old cemetery. Scan old local yearbooks and post them. Post the indexes out of local history books. If they don't have an index you can create one. Create a list of old-timers and pioneers for your site.
You may try to do one thing that is just for fun. For example, if whaling was important to your Borough, you might want to post a list of old whaling terms or whaling ship info. Skagway could use something fun on the Chilkoot trail or trivia about Glaciers. North Slope wouldn't be complete without info about oil drilling and/or Will Rogers and Wiley Post. The Aleutians might want a trivia section about the Japanese takeover in WWII. Nome and gold mining go together; Fairbanks and riverboats; Denali and mtn climbing feats. Somebody could to do something on sourdough. Each Borough is different - treat it so, and have fun!
You will need an html editor. There are several free or inexpensive web design programs available, for example: Expression Web, Dreamweaver, Coffee Cup, or any other editor. Expression Web is the easiest and most intuitive web program that I have used, and it is free.
The other program you will need is an FTP program. This is just a mini-program that sends your webpage from your computer to the server on the internet. I like to think of FTP as the postman. There are many free or shareware FTP programs available such as CoreFTP and Filezilla. The choice is yours.
You can choose how independent you want to be. The AKGenWeb team has members willing to help each other. We use a Google Group, AKGenWeb CC, to "meet." We email each other. And, occasionally, we even talk on the phone! But, team members are not required to interact, just reply to Roll Call the first of every month.
You decide when you are ready to volunteer. Just send the State Coordinators an introductory email expressing your interest in volunteering. We'd be happy to answer your questions. We'd love to have you join the team!
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Thank you, Jeff Kemp for the above logos!
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