Genealogy on the Internet
(written in 2005)

By Jim Rice

Opportunities for genealogical research on the Internet continue to grow at a seemingly astronomical rate. As an example, Cyndi’s is currently linking to over 264, 800 sites! With this proliferation of sites, it becomes increasingly important to have a means of focus to keep on track and avoid wandering around too much.

Remember that successful genealogical research is basically a matter of finding records that link us to our ancestors and relatives or finding that someone else has already done the record finding for us. In my experience, there are three main categories of sites for genealogical research on the Internet, namely those with (1) Online genealogies, (2) Online records, and (3) Online leads to offline genealogies and records.

I have reviewed these categories and pointed out what I feel are the main web sites for each. Collectively, these reviews cover the great majority of the material I have been presenting in workshops at the Athens Library and provide all with an opportunity to revisit the Internet and further mine it for genealogical findings of interest. Each review was published in the COGS newsletter and posted here on our COGS web page where the web addresses are hyperlinks, allowing users to systematically work through all the recommended sites to see what they can find on their ancestors and relatives. Click on the links above to learn about each category.

The "Genealogy on the Internet" lessons provided on this web site are the property of Dr. James T. Rice and may not be copied to any other web site, print material, or other media without his permission. Permission is granted to link to this page.