OHGenWeb Guidelines/Bylaws
OHGenWeb County Coordinators are governed by OHGenWeb county guidelines/bylaws in addition to the county coordinator guidelines posted at USGenWeb bylaws.
Expectations of CCs and Co-CCs
- You are caring for a county website that in most cases is the result of the work of numerous volunteers and contributors over a 30 year span:
- Update your county's website with your name and email address within 7 days of county adoption
- Belong to the OHGenWeb official mailing list for internal correspondence and be an active OHGenWeb team member by readily responding to Roll Calls
- A willingness and desire to assist researchers visiting your county website and provide friendly assistance to inquiries within 7 days
- Maintain your county's website to be compliant with OHGenWeb Guidelines, eliminate broken links, and to display current year in the copyright statement
- Provide the State Coordinator with contact info (name, email, & phone), and inform the State Coordinator of any changes to their contact information
- Improve your county's website regularly with a piece of new info, image, or resource link.
- OHGenWeb county coordinators must make sure a submission to their county project is not a copyright infringement.
- One of the approved OHGenWeb Project logos must be prominently displayed on the main page and linked to the OHGenWeb homepage. See the OHGenWeb Logos page.
- The USGenWeb Project logo must be prominently displayed on the home page, if linked, this logo may only be linked to the USGenWeb national site.
- The coordinator's name must be on the main page of their website. The main page must also provide the coordinator's contact information (email address or Email Registry ID) or a link to a "Contact Info" page, which contains an email address or Email Registry ID.
- OHGenWeb county coordinators must display the current year and copyright info on their main page. A copyright notice may be as simple as "Copyright 2025 The OHGenWeb Project"
- Provide a direct link to the USGenWeb Archives Special Project, as well as a link to the state-level Archives Special Project. Additionally for county websites, provide a direct link to the county-level Archives Special Projects.
All Project websites need to have:
- No website will contain any postings asking for money for personal gain.
- No website will contain links for the purpose of earning money for personal gain.
- No website will use the generic "GenWeb" term. Two identifying letters for US or state abbreviation must be used (for example "USGenWeb" or "OHGenWeb").
- No imbedded browser scripts shall be used to redirect the visitor's web browser to an external site.
- No links to any political party or to any non-government political organization.
- While links to relevant non-commercial genealogical sites are encouraged, an OHGenWeb county site must include enough on-site content that off-site links remain a minor part of the site.
No Project websites may have:
- Contributed material may be removed only at the request of the original submitter.
- An outgoing County Coordinator (CC) must ensure that all contributed material remains with the project.
- The outgoing CC may decide whether a subsequent CC may reuse the format and presentation (HTML, graphics, layout, backgrounds).
- The incoming CC must receive the raw content (data, photos, documents, transcriptions, etc).
Content and Contributions:
Bylaws for OHGenWeb
The State of Ohio is an At Will state for employment. Volunteers fall under the category of employee under Ohio
AT Will Law. In the state of Ohio an employer does not have to give notice nor reason for terminating an employee.
AT Will volunteering applies to OHGenWeb county coordinators.
Motion 2005 -01 -2 Passed:
Motion 2005 -01 -3 Passed:
Motion 2005 -01 -4 Passed:
Before 2005:
OHGenWeb Mail List Code of Ethics
- Posts to the OHGenWeb mail list (the list) should be held to subjects
of interest and help to other Ohio County Coordinators (OCCs), the Ohio
State Coordinator (OSC) and Assistant Ohio State Coordinators (AOSCs) in
performing their duties. This would include any subject that will enable an
OCC, OSC or AOSC to improve an OHGenWeb based website or this OHGenWeb mail
list.
- If one OCC disagrees with another OCC (or the OSC or AOSC) over any
matter, it will be discussed in a respectful manner. There will be no name
calling, belittling or degrading of any one person or group of persons, or
their ideas expressed on this list, by any other person. Discussions should
remain within the context of the discussion at hand, and differing opinions
should be stated without becoming hateful or insulting.
- Occurrence of an infraction will be determined by the OSC and/or AOSC.
OCC's may notify the appropriate OSC and/or AOSC, if they feel they, or
their ideas, have been unjustly attacked or ridiculed. In order to be
considered, this should be done in private rather than sending the complaint
back to the list, which only adds fuel to the fire.
- If infractions are determined to have occurred the following steps will
be taken:
a.) The OSC or OASC will send a private post to the infractor, requesting the action cease. If the infraction continues, after sending a private communication to the infractor:
b.) The OSC or OASC will send a public post to the list, requesting the action cease. If the infraction continues after posting a public communication to the list::
c.) The infractor will lose all list privileges for a period of one week (seven calendar days) from date of the second infraction, which includes posting privileges and receipt of the list. Notice of this action shall be sent to the infractor and to the list. The link from the Ohio state county link page to that county web will remain intact. At the end of that week, the OSC or OASC will then contact the infractor as to their willingness to cooperate with the above code. If necessary, a discussion will take place on this list.





