Welcome to the TNGenWeb Project County Guidelines page! There are a few basic requirements that every county host is expected to meet. You need to have:

1. A knowledge of the county you will be hosting.

2. A desire and willingness to help those that visit their pages.

3. Enthusiasm.

4. Time to devote to your county page. Researchers are looking for fresh and frequently updated information on your pages. The time required can range from two to twenty hours per week, depending on the time you have available and your degree of enthusiasm.

5. Team spirit. You will be joining a volunteer team of County Coordinators dedicated to making the TNGenWeb Project the best site for those seeking to research their Tennessee ancestors.

6. Upon acceptance, You will be subscribed to the TN-announce mailing list (required) so you can receive official announcements, also you may join the TN-all mailing list where you may participate in the discussion of TNGenWeb Project goals.

7. Each county must provide a query page. There are several query systems available, and which one you choose is up to the individual County Coordinator.
   • TNGenWeb Automated Query Boards (WebBBS)
   • TNGenWeb Autobot
   • CCHelper
   • Email direct to you and you post it to your page manually, or use a script of your own.

8. The main county page must display the USGenWeb logo and TNGenWeb logo or the words TNGenWeb Project and have a link to the main page for each. (Struck out 22 Aug 2006.)
   
   (Revised Section 8 added 22 Aug 2006)
   
   TNGenWeb Project/TNGenNet, Inc. County and Special Project home pages must display a hot-linked TNGenWeb Project logo graphic or the hot-linked words TNGenWeb Project . The logo graphic or the text version should direct to http://www.tngenweb.org, (tngenweb.org). It is recommended that the logo graphic or text version be immediately visible on the “first screen” without requiring scrolling when accessing the website with a standard browser and with a monitor set at 800 by 600 resolution. TNGenWeb Project/TNGenNet, Inc. does not have an official logo graphic but offers many unofficial logo graphics offered in our Graphics Helper Section.
   
   
   TNGenWeb Project/TNGenNet, Inc. County and Special Project home pages must prominently display an official hot-linked The USGenWeb Project   logo graphic, (http://www.usgenweb.org). It is recommended that the logo graphic be immediately visible on the “first screen” without requiring scrolling when accessing the website with a standard browser and with a monitor set at 800 by 600 resolution.
   
   
   TNGenWeb Project/TNGenNet, Inc. County and Special Project home pages may display hot-linked logo graphics of any nonprofit historical or genealogical association which supports the goals and standards set forth in the Preamble of our TNGenNet, Inc. Charter provided that the TNGenWeb Project logo graphic or text link and The USGenWeb Project logo graphic should appear above any other project’s logo.
   
   

   All hosts are required to be subscribed to the TN-announce mailing list. The discussion list for TNGenWeb hosts is TN-All. Subscription to the discussion list is optional. You will be asked if you would like to subscribe when you adopt a county. The guideline for posting to TN-All is found at: mail_list.htm Please read Mailing List Resources for TNGenWeb Members.

   We have used the name TNGenWeb Project as our public name since 1996. TNGenNet, TNGenWeb Project, Tennessee Genealogical Network, Inc. is currenty our corporate name. TNGenWeb Project is affiliated with the USGenWeb Project, and they have a set of minimum requirements for each County and State Page, these requirements must be observed, and can be found at:
   http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/CCguidelines.shtml

   USGenNet, Inc. (a nonprofit corporation) generously provides space for the TNGenWeb Project. Each TNGenWeb county home (index) page using our TNGenWeb/TNGenNet domain for their county website and every TNGenWeb Special Project must have a hot-linked USGenNet, Inc. graphic placed on each county home page, as well as the following USGenNet required language.
   
   

   “This TNGenWeb Project website is hosted by USGenNet, a nonprofit web-hosting service solely supported by tax-deductible donations. If this website has provided you with useful information, please consider making a donation to USGenNet to help keep websites like this online.” (Text revised 21 Sep 2006. See sample of a hot-linked USGenWeb graphic and the revised text at the bottom of this page.)
   

   Also please visit our SSI Sample Page.
   

   Copyright. Before posting information on your pages or offering look up services, please make sure you do not infringe upon an author's copyright. The official USGenWeb Project policy concerning copyright law can be found here.

   Miscellaneous - TNGenWeb pages are intended to assist with genealogical research. No commercial pages or pages with personal views on politics, religion or similar matters are allowed. Appropriate commercial sites such as hotels, restaurants, booksellers, Chambers of Commerce, etc, may, however be linked to your site. Do not post Gedcoms or family group sheets if your website is hosted at TNGenWeb.org.

   Additionally, a host is expected to put their new page online in a timely manner and keep it freshly updated, using technology which is most appropriate for our researchers. In most cases this means keep it simple.

   Our County Coordinators may give (gift) their personal TNGenNet (TNGenWeb) county websites to TNGenNet, Inc. The TNGenNet webmaster shall have the option of keeping the website on the TNGenNet (tngenweb.org) domain; if the website is on an outside server, move the website contents to TNGenNet (tngenweb.org) domain; or move the county data to the Tennessee Records Repository. Once the county website is given and is online at tngenweb.org or the data is placed in the Tennessee Records Repository, that website or data shall remain on tngenweb.org and not be moved to another ISP, server, or domain.
   (Paragraph added 8 Oct 2006 by direction of TNGenNet Inc Executive Board.)
   

   Also please visit our TNGenNet, Inc. Legacy Websites list.