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Mega Data Sites
Access
Genealogy
This links portal also features a variety of
useful databases, especially if you’re researching American Indian
ancestors—for example, it has easy-to-search versions of the 1880 Cherokee
census and the Dawes Rolls (19th-century enrollment records of Cherokee,
Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole—click Index and Database of Indian
Rolls). A national cemetery database search of more than 35,000 names is a
recent addition.
Ancestry.com
This ever-expanding data collection comes the
closest to realizing the dream of being able to do real genealogy in your
pajamas. With a dazzling array of databases at your fingertips, including images
and every-name indexes for every extant US federal census, Ancestry.com is
easily worth the $155.40 cost of the annual US Deluxe membership. Especially if
you have ancestors in the British Isles, where the coverage is most thorough,
consider an upgrade to the $299.40 World Deluxe package, which unlocks the rest
of Ancestry.com’s nearly 25,000 databases. Even penny-pinchers can benefit
from the free user-submitted pedigree files in Ancestry World Tree.
FamilySearch
For a peek at what’s in the works from the Internet home of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ vast family history resources—and a
chance to put in your two cents—check out FamilySearch Labs at labs.familysearch.org
and labs.familysearch.org/blog.
While you wait for new ideas to emerge from the lab, continue to enjoy
FamilySearch’s free access to the transcribed 1880 US, 1881 British Isles and
1881 Canadian censuses; vital-records indexes for Scandinavia and Mexico; the US
Social Security Death Index; the International Genealogical Index (IGI);
user-submitted family trees in Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File; the
Family History Library catalog; and research guides.
Footnote
Through a contract with the National Archives and Records Administration (see
XX), this private site is digitizing and offering paid access to Civil War
pension index cards, Southerners’ property claims against the US Army, and
naturalization records for New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, among other
records. Subscriptions cost $59.95 per year or $7.95 per month, or purchase a
single image for $1.95.
GenealogyBank
This new player among nationwide data sites emphasizes historical newspapers.
The site draws upon more than a half-million editions of 1,300 newspapers dating
from 1690 to 1977, as well as 24 million obituaries from 1977 on. A $19.95 per
month or $119.95 per year subscription also buys access to more than 11,700
pre-1900 books and other printed items, plus more than 115,000 historical
documents spanning 1789 to 1980. The latter include all the American State
Papers (1789 to 1838) and genealogical content from the US Serial Set (1817 to
1980).
HeritageQuest
Online
You can’t subscribe to this site, but your library or other such institution
can—visit it to use HeritageQuest on site and ask if you can get access from
home through the library’s Web site. Dig into the complete US census, 20,000
family history books, the Periodical Source Index to 1.9 million genealogy
journal and magazine articles, Revolutionary War pension and bounty-land
application files, and Freedman’s Bank depositor registers.
MyTrees.com
This site’s own Ancestry Archive boasts 233
million names in pedigree files, or you can search a combination of databases,
on and off the site, totaling 1 billion names with one click. Don’t want to
pay the $15 monthly fee? Submit your own family tree files and earn free access.
National
Archives and Records Administration
It’s not the easiest or
most-intuitive Web site around, but the archives’ online home is a must-visit
destination for US genealogists—even if only for the lessons on how to access
its treasures in Washington, DC, and regional facilities. Its Access
to Archival Databases searches more than 85 million electronic records.
Popular data sets include 9.2 million WWII Army enlistment files and 604,596
arrivals in the Port of New York during the Irish famine, 1846 to 1851. The Archival
Research Catalog contains more than 124,000 digitized maps, photos and
documents—among them WWII casualty lists and the Dawes Rolls of American
Indians.
RootsWeb
New at this biggest free genealogy site are an
improved mailing-list search engine and a more-robust server for the
WorldConnect pedigree files, which now number more than 480 million names in
400,000 trees. The message boards—shared with RootsWeb sister site
Ancestry.com, as are the family trees—recently surpassed 18 million posts.
USGenWeb
With sites for every state and most counties within those states, the
volunteer-run USGenWeb remains a superb starting place for researching ancestors
across America. You can most efficiently search its zillions of user-submitted
transcriptions and other files via the (somewhat hidden) basic
and advanced
search pages.
World
Vital Records
An attempt to apply the user-edited Wikipedia
concept to genealogy, this site aims to make a Web page for every deceased
person and every location in the world. In the meantime, for $49.95 a year you
get Everton Publishers’ pedigree and family group sheets collection, a mixed
bag of vital records and nearly 1 million pages from small-town newspapers. Much
of the content is free, so see what you can get before paying up.
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International and
Immigration Destinations
Access
to Archives
A guide for where to look rather than an actual
storehouse of sources, “A2A” will point you to your British ancestors’
records among 9.2 million items in 411 repositories. The cataloged records date
from the eighth century to today.
Automated
Genealogy
This free census-transcription site keeps
getting better, with the 1901 Canadian census now indexed and linked to images
at Library and Archives Canada <www.collectionscanada.ca>. The 1906 census
of the Northwest Provinces and the 1911 Canadawide census are almost complete.
Canadian
Genealogy Centre
Passenger lists are coming aboard at this Library and Archives Canada site,
which already boasts various censuses, western land grants, WWI service files
and divorce records (1841 to 1968).
CastleGarden.org
Ellis Island’s precursor, Castle Garden, was
America’s first official immigration center. You can find early New York
arrivals among more than 10 million records covering 1830 through 1892; another
2 million records, dating back to 1820, await transcribing.
Danish
Demographic Database
Find your Danish emigrants in a database of
394,000 police records from 1868 to 1908, and in census records from 1769 to
1921—11.7 million names in all. The growing index to probates now covers
Thisted, Viborg, Aalborg and Randers counties.
Digitalarkivet
Norway’s digital archive provides the
nation’s past, starting with censuses (1801, 1865, 1875, 1900), emigrant
registers, tax lists, probate indexes and military rolls. Now webmasters are
working to digitize all 11,000 parish registers—that’s 1.85 million pages.
DocumentsOnline
Searching this collection of digitized records
from Britain’s national archives is free; viewing an image costs about $7.
You’ll find more than a million Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills covering
1384 to 1858, Royal Navy service records, petitions from the time of Henry III
to James I, the Domesday Book, even Victorian Prisoners Photograph Albums.
Ellis
Island
Some 17 million newcomers to America passed
through the port of New York between 1892 and 1924, and you can search for them
in this milestone database of 25 million records. View manifest images free
online, or order prints starting at $25.
Family
History Online
The British Federation of Family History
Societies has compiled more than 66 million records including parish registers,
memorial inscriptions, censuses and, most recently, several thousand gravestone
photographs. Searching is free and viewing your finds costs pennies, with a
minimum deposit of about $10.
Federation
of Eastern European Family History Societies
Conquer the challenges of Eastern European
research with the tips and databases collected here, including the American
Historical Society of Germans from Russia’s new Save Our Ancestral Records database
of obituaries www.ahsgrsoar.org. And don’t miss the data from this side of the
Atlantic, such as the index of newspaper records extracted to replace those lost
in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
FindMyPast.com
This site—called 1837online.com until 2006—formerly focused on the
civil-registration indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales
(begun in 1837). But its scope has broadened to include the 1841, 1861, 1871 and
1891 British censuses, military records and, most recently, outbound passenger
lists from the UK. Eventually the emigration records will cover departures up to
1960; those from 1890 to 1919 are already online. Various per-unit subscription
plans range from about $14 for 90 days to $200 a year.
FreeBMD
This volunteer-staffed site includes not only transcriptions of nearly 131
million birth, marriage and death records from England and Wales, but also
images of many of those records. Affiliated sites are now tackling censuses
and parish registers, with more than 1.7 million church records to date at www.freereg.org.uk.
Genlias
Dutch genealogists have it good: This free
treasure trove of 9.4 million records from the civil register—the most
important source for Dutch genealogical research—documents 39.2 million people
going back to 1811.
Genline
Swedish researchers willing to pay—Genline starts at about $29 for 20
days—can forget scrolling microfilm and browse more than 16 million pages of
church records, the most valuable Swedish genealogy resource.
GENUKI
Let this favorite of Family Tree Magazine readers (in our fifth-anniversary
poll) lead you through the intricacies of UK and Irish research, with tips, FAQs,
user-contributed databases, maps, newsgroups and bulletin boards.
Images
Canada
This Library and Archives Canada site searches more than 65,000 images in
collections across the country, or you can follow a predesigned Image Trail or
view a Photo Essay.
Immigrant
Ships Transcribers Guild
If you’re stymied by the Ellis Island and Castle Garden sites, turn to this
Family Tree Magazine reader favorite, where volunteers have transcribed
passenger lists from a variety of ports totaling 3.4 million entries.
Institute
of Migration
Finnish records here include passenger lists (318,000 records), passports
(197,000), farm names (227,000) and North American Finns (146,000 people).. You
can search emigrants for free; full access costs about $40 for a year.
JewishGen
The widest-reaching online Jewish genealogy network offers the Family Finder
database of 400,000 surnames and towns, ShtetLinks for 250-plus communities, the
ShtetlSeeker database of Central and Eastern European town names and the Family
Tree of the Jewish People, with data on more than 3 million individuals.
Origins
Network
Total access to this umbrella site for Irish, British and Scottish data runs
about $92 annually. Irish researchers might find that a bargain, since Irish
Origins www.irishorigins.com
includes the Griffith’s Valuation tax enumeration, the 1851 Dublin city census
and a wills index covering 1484 to 1858. British
Origins has the 1841 and 1871 censuses, plus indexes to marriages (1538 to
1840) and wills. No need to pony up for the free Scots
Origins, which taps FamilySearch’s IGI (see page XX). The Origins Network
also recently redesigned the Burke’s
Peerage site, though access requires a separate subscription.
Programme
de Recherche en Démographie Historique
Quebec researchers, commencez ici! This
759,400-record database draws largely from 153 parishes’ registers spanning
1621 to 1799, plus 45,000 burial records from 1800 to 1850. You can search for
free, but results cost about $19 for 150 records.
ScotlandsPeople
Search 50 million records at this official site, including banns and marriages
(1553 to 1931), deaths (1855 to 1956), births and baptisms (1553 to 1854) and
censuses. The wills and testaments (1513 to 1901) database is free; others cost
about $11 for 30 “page credits.” The sibling Scottish
Archive Network adds a wealth of digitized historical documents.
TheShipsList
Another excellent place to find immigrant arrivals, TheShipsList serves up
2,000-plus free pages of passenger lists and other ocean-crossing info.
WorldGenWeb
Though spottier than USGenWeb, this international version of the
volunteer genealogy site is nonetheless a worthwhile starting place for foreign
family history, with more than 400 sites under its umbrella.
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State and Regional
Resources
Alabama
Department of Archives and History
Your Alabama Civil War soldier awaits in a
database here, along with online files of WWI servicemen, photos and 1867 voter
rolls for a growing list of counties: It now includes Wilcox, Winston, Walker,
Tuscaloosa, Tallapoosa, Talladega, Sumter, St. Clair, Shelby, Russell and Pike.
The Local
Government Records Microfilm Database will tell you where to look next.
Archives
of Maryland Online
Since last we looked, the hidden treasures at
the Maryland archives have been brought out from behind cumbersome URLs and
revealed in this online trove of 471,000 historical documents. These range from
especially rich collections of city directories and probate records to land,
military and early Maryland resources.
Arizona
Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates
We wish other states would follow Arizona’s
example of posting searchable indexes to birth (1887 to 1931) and death (1878 to
1956) certificates, linked to PDFs of the originals.
California
Online
Archive of California
Drawing on materials from a variety of
California museums, historical societies and archives, this compilation
encompasses more than 120,000 images; 50,000 pages of documents, letters and
oral histories; and 8,000 guides to collections.
Colorado’s
Historic Newspaper Collection
This collaborative project aims to create a
statewide historical newspaper database, spanning 1859 to 1923 and a total of
1,639,000 pages—all fully indexed. You can view articles individually or in
context.
Florida
Memory Project
Besides more than 130,000 images in the Florida
Photographic Collection, this handsome site serves up such genealogical
morsels as digitized Spanish land grants, 13,000 Confederate pension
applications and WWI service cards.
Georgia
Digital
Library of Georgia
Discover your Georgia roots, y’all, in this
gateway to 500,000 digital images, documents and films from 60 institutions and
100 government agencies. Finds here include 50,000 aerial photos, the New
Georgia Encyclopedia, books, manuscripts and newspapers.
Illinois
State Archives
It’s hard to top this collection of indexes and databases for Illinois
research. Besides a wealth of military and veterans’ files, the statewide
marriage index (1763 to 1900) and dual death indexes (pre-1916 and 1916 to 1950)
are essential tools, as is the Illinois Regional Archives Depositories (IRAD)
index for locating other records in the Land of Lincoln.
Kansas
State Historical Society
Highlights of this Jayhawk history resource are
a searchable index to the 1895 Kansas
census, plus the Kansas
Biographical Names Index. The guides to researching your Kansas kin also are
top-notch.
Kentucky
Historical Society
Browse the Kentuckiana Digital Library, search
the online catalog and statewide virtual library, then see where your Kentucky
cousins wound up in the cemetery records database. It’s all a pleasure at this
spectacularly good-looking site.
Louisiana
State Archives Confederate Pension Applications Index
This index covers more than 49,000 names from
pension applications submitted to Louisiana’s Board of Pension Commissioners.
Maine
State Archives
Online indexes for marriages (1892 to 1996),
deaths (1960 to 1996) and Revolutionary War land grant and pension applications
are just for starters. The archival
database will tell you whether your Maine ancestors’ records are available
in the state archives—in which case you can order them online—or at other
state agencies.
Massachusetts
Archives
Center stage here goes to the database of birth
and death indexes (1841 to 1910), searchable by first and last names, year and
location. Each entry gives the original certificate’s location. The other star
attraction—even if you don’t have Massachusetts kin—is the ongoing project
to transcribe more than 1 million records of immigrants who arrived via Boston
from 1848 to 1891.
Minnesota
Historical Society
Even Paul Bunyan would be hard-pressed to get
his arms around all these indexes to deaths (1904 to 2001), births (1900 to
1934), place names,
microfilmed newspapers, digitized
photos, Sanborn insurance maps, and even a directory of Gopher State
photographers who may have captured your kin.
Missouri
State Archives
Show me the records, including 185,000 pre-1910
births and deaths, a death-certificate database (1910 to 1956), naturalization
records (1816 to 1955), court papers and land patents. You’re really in luck,
though, if you want Missouri military records: 576,000 in all, from the War of
1812 through World War I, many linked to images of the originals.
Nevada
State Library and Archives
No need for subscription census sites if
you’ve got ancestors in Nevada, the first state to post all its federal census
data—310,000 entries total from 1860 through 1920 (minus the missing 1890
census)—online, with powerful search tools to boot.
New
Jersey State Library
The Garden State library’s site is especially
worth harvesting for Revolutionary War and Civil War records, as well as the
history of African-Americans in New Jersey.
New
York State Civil War Soldier Database
This database of more than 360,000 New York
soldiers encompasses those who donned Union blue in state volunteer and US
sharpshooter units, as well as three regiments of US Colored Troops.
NewEnglandAncestors.org
Membership does have its privileges if you’re researching your family tree in
New England. A $75 annual fee lets you scour more than 110 million names from
the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s resources, including censuses,
vital records, church records, voter and tax lists, Sanborn maps, the Great
Migration study of immigrants between 1620 and 1633, newspapers from Colonial
days to 1920, and The New England Historical and Genealogical Register from its
inception in 1847 through 2001.
North
Dakota Institute for Regional Studies
Researchers in both North and South Dakota will
appreciate the Dakota Territory 1885 census here. You’ll also find
naturalization records, a biography index and a database of obituaries from the
Fargo Forum newspaper.
Ohio
Historical Society
New here is an online index to records from the
state’s boys and girls industrial schools (1858 to 1915). It joins such
databases as the Ohio
Death Certificate Index (1913 to 1944) and the roster of Ohioans in the War
of 1812. You also can search the society’s 230,000-item library catalog or
jump over to Ohio Memory,
a digital history drawing on 26,000 primary sources from 330 repositories.
Oregon
State Archives Genealogy Records
The Oregon Historical Records Index searches
more than a half-million entries in documents at the state archives. If your
ancestors’ records aren’t there, the Oregon Historical County Records Guide
or the Provisional and Territorial Records Guide can probably tell you where in
the state’s 36 counties to look.
Pennsylvania
State Archives
The Quaker State’s archives belie
Pennsylvania’s pacifistic founders with some 1.5 million online military
records. Databases include the Revolutionary War Military Abstract Card File,
Militia Officers Index Cards (1775 to 1800), Civil War Veterans’ Card File and
World War I Service Medal Application Cards.
Texas
State Library & Archives Commission
Delve deep into the heart of Texas history with
databases of 54,634 Confederate pension applications (1899 to 1975), Texas
Adjutant General Service Records (1836 to 1935), the Index to Republic Claims
(1835 to 1846) and more.
Utah
History Research Center Index Search
Search this index to more than 250,000
1905-to-1954 death certificates (with later years in the works), and your
results now link to digital images of the originals. Various county and court
records are also searchable here, including some births, divorces and probate
files. There’s a wealth of digital
photos, too.
Virginia
Library
of Virginia
This site is a must for anyone with Confederate
soldier kin, whether or not from Virginia, for its ability to search names
published in Confederate Veteran magazine between 1893 and 1932. You also can
find ancestors in 6,000 scanned family Bible records, the death register index
(1853 to 1896), wills and administrations (to 1800) and Confederate pension
applications.
Washington
State Digital Archives
The nation’s first archives dedicated
specifically to electronic preservation of records, this site keeps adding to
its already amazing array of databases. Newly online are the state’s 1910
census and an image-linked index to pre-1930 marriage records. That brings the
total of records online to 20.7 million—and counting.
Wisconsin
Historical Society
Milk these Dairy State databases for all
they’re worth: more than 150,000 obituaries and biographical sketches; 1
million-plus births, 400,000 deaths and 1 million marriages in the Pre-1907
Vital Records Index; 1,000 articles, memoirs, interviews and other primary
sources on early Wisconsin history; Civil War rosters; vintage images; and
16,000 historical and biographical articles.
Western
History and Genealogy
The Denver Public Library is your host for a
variety of obituary databases, a guide to Colorado place names, indexes to
Centennial State pioneers, the 1887 Denver city directory, military records
(including Nebraska Civil War records) and the Western
History Photography Collection of more than 120,000 historical images.
Western
States Marriage Records Index
Now the aegis of the Idaho Falls Regional
Family History Center, this project has posted more than 490,000 marriage
records to date, with more added daily (notably New Mexico records from the
1700s). You’ll find most pre-1900 marriages for Arizona, Idaho and Nevada,
plus significant numbers from California, western Colorado, Montana, Oregon,
Utah, eastern Washington and Wyoming.
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Web Tools
Cyndi’s
List
This
classic collection of links continues to grow—with 264,800 links in 180-plus
categories at last count—and remains our favorite stop to find family history
sites.
Diigo
This nifty gizmo lets you add sticky notes to Web pages to mark your family
history finds, then you can share your discoveries and notes with other
researchers.
Lost
Cousins
A
fascinating new application of technology to genealogy, Lost Cousins takes your
relatives from FamilySearch’s 1880 US, 1881 Canadian and 1881 British census
transcriptions and matches them to other researchers investigating the same
folks. The catch: Only a subscriber can initiate contact with a “lost
cousin,” though there’s no charge to register or reply to a message.
MyHeritage
The face-recognition gimmick will get you here—which celebrities look like
they belong in your family tree? But don’t overlook the MyHeritage Research
free genealogy search engine, which looks for your ancestors (with spelling
variations) in hundreds of key genealogy databases. And try the free, visually
oriented Family Tree Builder genealogy software that runs in 12 languages.
One-Step
Web Pages by Stephen P. Morse
Cut to
the chase in a few dozen genealogy database sites, including Ellis Island,
CastleGarden.org, Automated Genealogy and several SSDI destinations. This Web
magician’s clever set of tools let you search them in a single step.
RootsTelevision
Who needs YouTube when we’ve got Roots Television, the Internet TV channel for
genealogists? Programs include how-to footage, lectures, storytellers’
recollections, tips from leading researchers and even some genealogy humor.
Tribal
Pages
Not just
another place to share pedigrees, this free site lets you share, document, chart
and illustrate your family tree online. To date, TribalPages has more than
100,000 trees and a database of more than 80 million names and 1 million photos.
WeRelate
This “wiki” project, which has allied itself with the Allen
County Public Library’s genealogy department, lets you scour 6 million
genealogy-related Web pages, create and collaborate on pages, and build an
online tree using Family Tree Explorer—all for free.
WorldCat
Search the catalogs of 10,000-plus libraries worldwide—more than 1 billion
items, all told—from your Web browser’s toolbar with WorldCat’s free
plug-in.
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History
Havens
CivilWar.com
We’ll overlook the pop-up ads in order to tap
this site’s wealth of battle maps, detailed timeline, 5,500 photos and
searchable text of the Official Record (OR for short), the account of the Civil
War from the commanders on the ground.
eHistory
Another spot to search the OR,
this Ohio State University site also offers timelines, more than 100,000 pages
of historical information, biographies and thousands of maps and old photos.
Library
of Congress
Besides offering the library’s online catalog
of almost every book in existence and the National
Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections from 1986 to date, this site excels
at making history come to life. Its American
Memory Project collects more than 9 million treasures from our past and
exhibits many of them online. For still more images, see the Prints
and Photographs Online Catalog.
Making of America: Michigan
& Cornell
This dual site continues to serve up a rich swath of US history with digitized
version of thousands of 19th-century publications. Between the two portals,
holdings total 4.7 million pages in 13,000 volumes. Cornell’s portion offers
yet another searchable version of the Civil War OR.
New
York Public Library Digital
A recent winner for Best Research Site at the
annual Best of the Web awards, the New York Public Library’s digital
incarnation includes more than a half-million manuscripts and books, historical
maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and printed ephemera.
The
Oregon Trail
Bring to life the journey of hundreds of
thousands Americans who went West on the Oregon Trail. If you don’t have
Oregon-bound ancestors, try the companion sites covering the Gold
Rush and “trailblazers”
such as Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
OurTimeLines.com
We love the color-coded timelines of world
events this site generates for ancestors’ lifetimes. You also can insert up to
10 personal events, such as schooling, marriages, employment and military
service, and create a list of famous people born the same year as your ancestor.
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Geographical Aids
Getty
Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online
Turn to this gazetteer for its flexible search
and ability to tell you what any of the 912,000 places in its database used to
be called.
Global
Gazetteer
Now with links to satellite images, this site
covers a whopping 2.8 million cities, past and present, around the globe. Each
entry includes population within seven kilometers, nearby places, altitude,
topographic maps and local weather.
Ireland’s
History in Maps
This site uses geography to trace the history
of Ireland’s residents from the BC era to the 1840s.
Ordnance
Survey
Find and map any place in the UK simply by
entering its name, postal code or National Grid reference. The resulting maps
are detailed and easy to save or print.
Perry-Castañeda
Library Map Collection
Unmatched for old maps, this also is an
excellent place to look for current cartography. Where else, though, would you
find a map of Central Europe in 1812, an automotive map of Aiken, SC, in 1919
and a 1910 “Milk Map” of San Francisco?
USGS
Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
Don’t be put off by the new home page for
these government geographic tools: You still can search for nearly 2 million
names of US places—inhabited or not—including old and variant names. Once
you’ve found an ancestral locale, mapping options include the customizable
USGS The National Map viewer, Google Maps, TopoZone and TerraFly.
World
Gazetteer
Though this site doesn’t include as many
places as Global Gazetteer, the accompanying info for each city is even more
useful, including census population data for the past 40 years and name
variants. Links make it easy to download GoogleEarth data.
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Specialized
Research Resources
AfriGeneas
Besides valuable tips for researching your African-American ancestors,
AfriGeneas adds dozens of forums, census records, slave data, a collection of
14,692 death records and a 48,730-name surname index.
Bureau
of Land Management General Land Office Records
New to this essential site for land-records
research: Survey plats, the official survey documentation the federal government
used when transferring a land title to an individual. Images of “serial
patents”—land titles issued between 1908 and the mid-1960s—are also here;
document images related to survey plats back to 1810 are being added state by
state. That’s all in addition to images of more than 2 million federal land
title records for eastern public-land states from 1820 to 1908.
Cemetery
Surveys Inc.
When a transcription isn’t enough, try this
collection of more than 170,000 gravestone photos, most from the southeastern
United States. North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia researchers also should
check the thousands of county court documents from those states.
Civil
War Soldiers & Sailors System
Start your Civil War ancestor search here, with
the easy-to-use database of 6.3 million soldier names. Another click takes you
to the basics about your ancestors’ regiment or descriptions of 364
significant battles.
DeadFred
Find your old family photos or reunite others with their pictures in this site
containing nearly 70,000 images (including a selection of school yearbooks) and
14,000 surnames.
Family
Tree DNA
This leading DNA-testing company also boasts
the most test-results databases and surname studies, with more than 140,000
records online. That includes more than 4,000 surname projects and nearly
100,000 Y-DNA records in its Ysearch,
the largest worldwide public Y-DNA database. You can even test to see how
closely your Y-DNA matches Thomas Jefferson’s.
Find
a Grave
Search 15 million grave records, find a
cemetery or browse by location at this Family Tree Magazine reader favorite.
Nationwide
Gravesite Locator
Search for burial locations of veterans and
their dependents in Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemeteries, state
veterans cemeteries and other Department of the Interior and military
cemeteries. For service members buried overseas, turn to the companion site for
the American Battle Monuments
Commission, which encompasses 24 overseas military cemeteries with 125,000
American war dead, plus Tablets of the Missing memorializing more than 94,000
members of the US military.
Sorenson
Molecular Genealogy Foundation
Get started in the fast-changing frontier of
genetic genealogy at the site for this volunteer project, which combines DNA
data with genealogical info—billed as the foremost collection of genetic
genealogy data in the world. You can search by test results or surname in two
databases of DNA profiles and family trees from around the world: The
Y-chromosome search contains 17,000 samples, and the mitochondrial database
includes 15,000 samples.
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Blogs
Eastman’s
Online Genealogy Newsletter
Why do we have the feeling our first-ever 101
Best Web Sites blogs category won’t be our last—or that next time we’ll
find even more worthy entries? This one, updated almost daily by the
knowledgeable Dick Eastman, is a good place to start. It’s packed with
genealogy news and product reviews, and you can jump from here to the
reader-created Encyclopedia of
Genealogy
Family
Matters
When you need genealogical tech support, turn
to Denise Olson’s blog, where she solves problems and shares “ways for home
users and family researchers to take advantage of the latest technology.”
The
Genealogue
For a cheekier personal update on the genealogy
universe, try this blog, which includes postings such as “Top 10 Signs Your
Ancestors Were Irish” and “Top 10 Ways to Make Money From Genealogy.”
The
Practical Archivist
You’ll quickly get addicted to this blog of
“archiving tips and geeky tidbits for genealogists, history buffs and keepers
of the family photo album. Plus reviews of entertaining history and tricks for
improving your Google IQ.”
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Mid-Continent
Public Library,
Independence,
Missouri
The Mid-Continent
Public Library of Independence, Missouri, is planning to spend $8 million for a
brand-new, world-class genealogy center on 6.5 acres of land that the library
recently purchased. Construction is expected to be completed in the spring of
2008. The new center will house a collection of family history from Missouri and
Kansas, as well as national and international collections. This is expected to
become the only facility of its magnitude in the region. Library Director
Richard Wilding says that it won't be as large as the Mormon Family History
Center in Salt Lake City, but that is a private facility. Wilding said he hopes
it will be similar in stature to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy
Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mid-Continent Library already has a
12,000-square-foot genealogy center, but it is full and doesn't have room for
expansion. The new building is expected to accommodate the genealogy center for
at least the next 20 years. It also will provide a lunchroom for researchers to
use and a separate programming room for the library to hold genealogy classes.
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One of our
Society members
compiled a list of their most useful genealogy sites:
Top Choices:
1. Cyndi's List
www.cyndislist.com
2. LDS records
www.familysearch.org
3. Ancestry
www.ancestry.com
4. Roots Web
www.rootsweb.com
5. USGenWeb
www.usgenweb.com
6. GenForum
www.genforum.genealogy.com
7. Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System
http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/
8.
General Land Office Records
http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/
9.
National Archives
www.archives.gov/
10. Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/index.html
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