These volunteer organizations are typically run by amateur genealogists as an to aid other amateur genealogists on the philosophy that "if I help you, you will help me" — the more we share, the faster we will all progress.  To that I can only say, right on! 

No one can deny that, for many decades, the county genealogy/history societies and family associations have provided an indispensable, invaluable service to the amateur genealogist as a vastly more efficient method of sharing information than one-on-one, snail-mail correspondence.  There have always been problems with this situation, however:  the transfer of information, even via societies and associations, was slow, labor intensive, and costly.

It was presumably never the intention that a county genealogy/history society or family association be a profit-making enterprise.  For most, gathering and sharing data was a labor of love, and publications and postage were charged at cost.  But that cost was never small, principally because the market was small — and small press runs and small volume transactions are inherently inefficient and thus expensive.  Of course, the Internet changes all that...

The cost of maintaining a web site with a reliable host on the Internet is as little as $3/mo, and there are several organizations that will host a non-profit family association or genealogy/history society for free.  Information that used to be slow and costly to exchange can now be made available instantly on demand with no cost and no labor (once uploaded).  One would think that genealogy/history societies and family associations would be pouring their information online.  After all, wasn't that the whole purpose of the society from the beginning?  Hasn't the only hindrance been the expense and labor, which are now minimal to zip?  Yet, what do we see?

The non-profit organizations — ostensibly created for the sole purpose of exchanging information as quickly and as cheaply as possible — are hanging onto their resources with a death grip.  The Internet is apparently seen solely as a retail outlet, as a place to advertise and cash in on the bonanza of millions of new hobby genealogists plying the web for genealogical information.  The very organizations who should be doing the most to get information online are generally doing the least — and, in some cases, have even become an impediment.

Not naming any names, but the largest online "Network" of volunteer county web sites has many counties administered by county genealogy societies.  I agree that the local county genealogy society is, or ought to be, the logical administrator of a non-profit county web site for this Network.  Yet county sites run by genealogy societies are often in marked contrast to the ones administered by individuals with no such society affiliations.  The latter sites have archives bulging with information and with more pouring in.  The former are stagnant shells, hawking the wares of the society with little if any useful information available at the site.  The Network should be aware that I would never donate data to such a site; and the society should be aware that I wouldn't dream of buying the wares at such a site.  In fact, just the opposite.  I'm pouring data online at my own web site in a deliberate effort to undermine those sites that are still selling their data.

In just nine years, I have managed to put over eleven thousand pages of data on my web site, starting from scratch, so there's no excuse for so many county administrators not doing more and no excuse for county societies continuing to charge for hard copies of their publications when they could easily and cheaply place them online.

Increasingly, these "semi-commercial" genealogy societies and family associations — often existing more to puff the egos of their officers than to serve their fellow genealogists — are going to find themselves marginalized as more and more people, like me, pour data online for the free use of all.  These organizations need to decide, now, whether they wish to die a slow death of obsolescence or, instead, become the leaders of a movement to place data online for the free use of all.

Is there any money in it?  No, of course not.  But have we not all professed that genealogy is a labor of love?  And didn't you mean it when you formed your non-profit organization?  So what is your excuse for continuing to charge high prices for data you could easily make available online at little cost to you and none to your fellow genealogists?

(If you don't have the technical expertise to get the material online yourself, just ask around.  There are many genealogists with the required expertise who will be glad to help — for free, of course.)

I wasn't going to name any names, but there is such an excellent example contrasting a county site run by a dedicated individual and one run by a county genealogy society that I cannot resist sharing it.  Ironically, the two counties are adjacent.  I have kin from both counties, so I have reveled in the bonanza of information from the former, but got my pay-back with the near total lack of online information from the latter.  The two sites are:

1) Allen Potts's Marion County, Ohio, web site, which has expanded to cover several surrounding counties under the new name of Heritage Pursuit; and

2) the Delaware County, Ohio, USGenWeb site run jointly by the DCHS-DCGS (Delaware County Historical Society and Delaware County Genealogical Society).

Please spend some time at both sites exploring what is available and appreciating how extraordinarily useful (or useless) a county web site can be.  And I'm sorry to be so hard on the Delaware site, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em — all in my personal opinion, of course.

P.S.  If you want to find an online copy of Baskin's 885-page book, The History of Delaware County and Ohio (1880), don't look for it at the Delaware County site — try Allen Potts's site.

The DCHS-DCGS not longer appear to be running the Delaware County OHGenWeb site.