In 1999, the website was founded by two researchers, Bridgett and Doc Schneider, who saw the need for such a volunteer service in their local area. The small website grew very rapidly from being solely a statewide offering in the United States to an international global volunteer organization with some 4,300 volunteers around the world and a staff of about eight, also volunteering their time. In 2007, more than 71,000 requests were handled by the system, 10% of them to volunteers outside of the United States.
In October 2011, it was announced that the website would be taken down.[1] Bridgett Schneider, the primary person behind RAOGK, died on November 12, 2011. Shortly before her death, she had a computer disaster. The site was down for three years.[2] Schneider's husband, Doc, who helped start RAOGK, stated that RAOGK would come back online[3] but the list of volunteers was unretrievable.
Meanwhile, an unofficial RAOGK website, RAOGK wiki, offered a workaround while the official RAOGK site was offline.[2] In January 2015, it was announced that RAOGK was online again.[4]
RAOGK has won many awardsFamily Tree Magazine named the site one of the "Best Big Genealogy Sites" in 2010.[10]