I have frequently and enthusiastically recommended USGenWeb as an Internet source for genealogy. The organizers are dedicated to providing free genealogy information. They have a site for every state and county/parish in the US. Volunteer coordinators post information about the county (cemetery transcriptions, census indexes, marriages, land records, etc.). They also welcome submissions from genealogists. Since it is volunteer-driven, the quality varies from county to county, but many times it has just the information needed to loosen the logjam.

 

Lately, however, I am encountering more and more broken links and the site search engines rarely, if ever works. I often see a notation that a certain county site is moving and to change the bookmarks (or the site is down completely).

 

Here's my best guess (and it is a guess). Rootsweb, which hosted USGenWeb for years, was "absorbed" by Ancestry.com (a subscription service) a while back. Everything has continued uninterrupted, but now Rootsweb and many of its parts are being absorbed into Ancestry. My guess is that Ancestry has booted USGenWeb (which after all is a major competitor), and USGenWeb is now rebuilding on other servers.

 

I would love to know if this is the case. If so, I salute USGenWeb for working to keep Internet genealogy free and easily accessible. It is too valuable a resource to lose.