----- Original Message -----
From: "Tina S Vickery" <tsvickery(a)adelphia.net>
To: <STATE-COORD-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 2:41 PM
Subject: [STATE-COORD-L] Query Manager system
Hi all,
This is a resource that many of the County and Local Coordinators
(Town Coordinators) in the MEGenWeb Project and throughout the
USGenWeb Project use. It has served the MEGenWeb Project well. I
asked Tom Raynor, USGenWeb Coordinator for Cumberland and York
Counties Maine, who developed the program, to share this resource
with all of you.
Below is a description of the Query Manager System. Thank you Tom,
for writing this description and sharing this resource with all of
us.
Sincerely,
Tina S. Vickery
ASC MEGenWeb Project
SC WIGenWeb Project
[Please feel free to share with appropriate Project lists]
_______
The USGenWeb Query Manager system has been around since 1997, and
is available free for use by any USGenWeb Town, County or State
Coordinator.
One of the original cornerstones of the USGenWeb Project was to
provide a place for on-line genealogical queries, similar to what
you might find in the back of a genealogical society's magazine.
In the beginning, visitors e-mailed their queries. Coordinators
copied, reformatted and pasted the queries to display on their web
pages. The Query Manager (QM for short) was created to automated
this process. Using QM, visitors submit their own formatted
queries, which are stored on a database for instant search and
retrieval by other visitors.
Using QM, visitors to any participating site can enter or search
queries for that or any other area. Each participating site is a
"window" into the entire system.
QM does not try to "steal" visitors from your USGenWeb site. Page
headings and default values are customized to give the appearance
that the visitor has never left your site. All "return to home
page" links direct the user back to the your site. Rather than
sending them away, QM can actually bring more visitors to your
site. In addition to every other participating USGenWeb site, QM
data is searchable via the GENDEX genealogical index. Visitors
from that system may never have heard of USGenWeb until they follow
a query to your site.
The same search tools available to end users allow you, the local
coordinator, to monitor queries submitted at - or about - your
area. Most coordinators check new queries once a week or every few
days to see if there are any new ones they can help with.
To use QM, you just copy a few links to your web site. The links
tell QM the area your site covers, and the address to send your
visitors back to when they are finished. You don't even need to
know any HTML; there is a QM setup page which will create the links
for you.
To learn more about QM, visit the following page:
http://www.raynorshyn.com/MEGenWeb/QMAbout.html
That page can get you up and running on QM in minutes, or you can
click the link to the QM FAQ page from there.
- Tom Raynor
USGenWeb Coordinator
Cumberland and York Counties, Maine
http://www.raynorshyn.com/ContactUs.asp?Addressee=USGW