UTILIZING THE CLAY COUNTY SITE

The Clay County, Florida site has a new home.  Please go to Clay County site http://members.aol.com/franmuse/clay/index.htm.  Hope you will enjoy your visit.

Please understand...there are several places that data is stored. This makes it hard to understand and more difficult....there isn't a ONE button "Search" for USGenWeb. The various sections sort of evolved, so maybe a tiny history of them will also help explain them!

1) Clay County Page
This was the 1st idea! Every county within the USA has a county page handled by a County Coordinator. Fran Smith is our CC. It is usually an index to what is on-line for the County as well as information about the Courthouse, etc. Every county page looks different. The CC can use their own creativity and everything is in HTML format. (That's the coding that actually creates web pages, i..e. the ending of the file is .htm)

There is a Search Engine on this page.....but remember it will ONLY cover what is actually ON this page!


2) Clay County Archives Page
There was a need for people to be able to contribute cemetery, wills, deeds, info in a simple format. So every county was set-up with an Archives Page and another volunteer to manage these files.

 There is a Search Engine on this page.


3) Ancestry/Rootsweb Boards
Then another system was thought of so that people could actually POST their own materials. Thus far in the design of USGenWeb a volunteer had to do this for you....and volunteers can get busy and not get the materials on-line as quickly as you'd like. Originally this was a Gen Connect System but in 2001 this was combined with Ancestry Boards. CLAY COUNTY, Fl  MESSAGE BOARD

POST a NEW Message.  Click here and you can post. Remember to use a subject line that is specific for your message, i.e. Jones Family 1812

ADD BOARD to your FAVORITES
If you research here often, that is a good thing to do. It works almost like a bookmark.

ADD BOARD to Notification
You may or may not want to do this.  This will notify you every time that a message is posted here. It will not contain the "body" of the message though. IF you are on the Bibb County Mailing List, you'll be getting the entire message.

LINKS and ANNOUNCEMENTS
This tells you the Message Board Manager. Other specific news about the county may be listed there.

VIEW MESSAGE TYPE
Click on the arrow, and see all the options,i.e. obituary, query, bible. (Remember though that the person posting the material must also have used this option. So just in case I would visit the Query boards, as that is the default posting area)

LISTED BY
You can choose if you prefer by Date or by "thread" (replies under original message)

REPLYING TO A MESSAGE
You can respond right on-line to the message.  IF you'd rather contact the poster privately, you can click on their name.
You will see ALL the messages that they have posted, and where these messages are located. This covers all counties.




4) Mailing Lists
This is the best known part!
And also the place where most people are comfortable posting their information.
***The important thing is to have the SUBJECT line pertinent to the subject of the message***
...as that is how that Search Engine is set up.

 There are several ways to search this.
 1) See EVERY message within a certain month
 http//archiver.rootsweb.com/

 Type in flCLAY

 OR

 http//searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
 Type in flCLAY. Select YEAR.

 Type in Cemetery.... and you'll see all the messages that we've been
 posting on the Cemeteries. Click on FULL, you'll get the actual message
 sent.

SO WE HAVE 4 DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES TO USE, so far!! Web page, Archives page, Ancestry/Rootsweb Page, Mailing List
5) Rootsweb
Most people think that Rootsweb and USGenWeb are the same. They're not. Rootsweb is the Server and is a business and recently merged with Ancestry.com. USGenWeb is an organization of volunteers that is given free space on Rootsweb Server.
But to help out, Rootsweb has also created "Resource Pages" for every county. http//resources.rootsweb.com/USA/FL/CLAY/

Another Search Engine This is not a USGenWeb Search engine, but does list all the Search Engines available through Rootsweb.
http//searches.rootsweb.com/

Now, I'll probably think of some other things....but meanwhile....print out this page, and you'll have it to refer to. And please ASK me again, .....I really do welcome your questions, as some of this I take for granted and forget that it needs to be explained.


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Fran Smith,County Coordinator
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Page last updated: 2 March, 2008  [Copyright: Fran Smith 2003-2008]