Yellowstone Genealogy Forum

SOME OF THE BEST GENEALOGY SITES ON THE WEB

September 30 2002 (Added 2002 Info)

There are numerous search engines and web sites available for the serious researcher, and we have summarized the ones that may provide the quickest access to the information you need. Some sites require membership fees, others are free. Many offer free web site space for expressing your own genealogy efforts. Many have bothersome banner ads.

When you are using the sites or search engines be sure to let them fully load before linking to another location. Be sure to scroll down the site to see what all is available before jumping in too soon and missing out on the really good stuff; or jamming your computer. (Courtesy of Athna May Porter)

GENEALOGY WEBSITES – CLASS FIVE

By Athna May Porter - March 2004

This is the newest release of the websites recommended by the Forum to start your research. The link takes you to a file for easy download.

September 24, 2002 Website File Information

Top Internet Sites

By Athna May Porter

MSGS Billings 2002 Seminar

Top Sites

Yellowstone Genealogy Forum - http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtygf/ Webmaster Cleve Kimmel keeps us up to date on YGF and other’s genealogy activities.

Note: Athna May Porter’s Past 3 Internet classes for three previous three Internet Classes of 1999, 2000, and 2001 follow this selection.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtmsgs/ - Montana State Genealogy Society's Home Page

Index at left takes you to information pertaining to the state society or the societies that belong to MSGS.

Genealogy Gateway - http://www.gengateway.com/index.cfm?GID=3

Tons of databases that are sorted by topics that contain so much information that you need a checklist to keep track of what you have checked out.

University of Idaho - http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html

A listing of over 4900 web sites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources. Links have been tested for correctness and appropriateness.

Family Tree Magazine 101 Top Sites - Just point and click your way to Internet genealogy madness! http://www.familytreemagazine.com/101sites/101_special.html

Databases

Online Genealogical Databases - http://www.gentree.com/gentree.html - Links to all known genealogical databases searchable through the Web. It is limited to searchable databases and does NOT include links to sites devoted to a family, unless a database is available for searching.

Webwide Surname Search - http://www.geocities.com/kcinsp2/ - Picosearch searches the Web for hits on your surname without having to drill down.

IGI Batch Numbers Search – a database of records that Salt Lake has extracted from Christenings and marriages with a different way to search them. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm#Page

On Familysearch.org or at the Family History Centers, you can search the IGI by last name and hopefully hit on the correct spelling. Here is a chance to look at the entire batch of records by area in alphabetical order by leaving search box empty.

Free databases - http://genealogysearch.org/index.htm#new – Gateway to free online genealogy databases. Check out the links that appear half way down the homepage.

Genealogy Links - http://www.genealogylinks.net/ - Consists of 750 pages and over 12,000 links; most of them to online surname searchable records.

Free Marriage Database: http://www.genealinks.com/register.htm – Over 8,000 marriages and growing, sent in by researchers.

A to Z Surname Links - http://www.abcgenealogy.com/ - 4,306 links also include research topics.

Southern Genealogical information - http://misc.traveller.com – Click on the Geneology Link and then the Southern Resources or the Civil War topics to enjoy the multitude of links created for the southern states. The other three topics have a lot of broken links.

Illinois State Archives - The Global Database Search will examine all databases from this web site containing name fields for the name you enter. http://www2.sos.state.il.us/departments/archives/genealogy/globsrch.html - A list of all databases containing the name you enter will be returned. If searching just a surname, be sure to place a comma after it. Examples: Bliss, or Bliss, William

English Origins - http://www.englishorigins.com/Welcome.aspx – Indexes to will, marriages, witness depositions, and Apprentice records. A pay site, but worth it, if you have a lot of English research that falls into these time lines.

Irish Origins - http://www.irishorigins.com/ - Free Indexes and the records to census data, Griffith's valuations, ships passenger lists, church records, convict records, etc.

Research Topics

1930 Census – Locator and FAQ – (Ancestry.com is a fee research site) http://www2.heritagequest.com/1930census/beginsearch.asp

http://1930census.archives.gov/FAQ.html#definitions - The 1930 Census Microfilm Locator - If you know where the person you are looking for lived, you may still be able to locate them on the census. Several different search strategies are listed at this site.

1930 Census – ED Finder - http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/census/index.html – Select State, then town and then street and ED Number pops up. Not all towns are listed yet.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/personal_technology/4106356.htm Tells why the site is now shut down.

City Directories - http://www.uscitydirectories.com/index.html - City Directories are arguably one of the most over-looked resources by genealogists and have been around since the 1700’s. This web site will attempt to identify all printed, microfilmed, and online directories, and their repositories, for the United States. If a directory exists for a locality, it will tell you where it can be found?

Ellis Island Index - http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/index.html – Temporarily down, but check back. Easier way to search the Ellis Island Index when odd spellings are involved.

The American Immigration - http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/ - A project that tells the stories of what our ancestors experienced during immigration.

Cemetery Records - http://www.interment.net/ - publishes cemetery records and materials relating to cemeteries. Visitors can locate burials and learn about cemeteries in general. They are not affiliated with RootsWeb, USGenWeb, Ancestry.com, or any other organization. Also provide links to other web sites with similar information.

Preserving Gravestones - http://www.gravestonestudies.org/lending_library.htm

A good site to locate how-to books on how to preserve your ancestors’ gravestones. Can interlibrary loan the books from here or can get titles for purchasing your own books through your local bookstore. Books list facts and information for cemeteries, some defunct, that just may be in your research area. Some links contains databases of names of those buried in various cemeteries.

Cemeteries and More - http://www.totentanz.de/cemetery.htm - Everything you ever wanted to know about cemeteries is here. Listings of US cemeteries that have been cataloged as well as online cemetery catalogs from around the world.

Religious Sites

Quakers – www.terraworld.net/mlwinton - Links to database searches for Quaker meetings and other information. The National Society of Descendants of Early Quakers promotes preservation and appreciation of early Society of Friends family records.

Bible Records - http://www.biblerecords.com/ - 548 Bibles, which includes surnames, locations and date ranges with more added constantly.

Military Sites

W.W.II Casualties http://www.archives.gov/index.html - Enter the research room and follow these links: click on Nail; Nail Digital Copies Search; search archival holdings; enter keywords (War Casualties) (Army) and submit search; display results. Click on view all thumbnails. This is the actual image of the books, state by state, which lists W.W.II casualties with their military serial number, rank and how they were killed.

Military Mailing Lists - http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail.html and

http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_wars.html#mil-PURPLEHEART

Frequently asked questions on Military Records -

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/1frequentlyaskedhistoricalquestions.html#Historical

Civil War - http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/ - Links to Southern states that contains everything from newsgroup messages to databases, etc. on information that would not be found, if for this site. This link also leads to the Parks department.

War of the Rebellion Books - http://library5.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html

Cornell University Library site that leads you to more than a month’s worth of researching. Half way down you will notice the two links that will deliver most of the correspondence that was created during the Civil War. Be sure to check out the rest of what Cornell’s, Making of America, has to offer.

FOREIGN COUNTRY RESEARCH

Jewish Web Index - http://www.jewishwebindex.com/ - Makes searching your Jewish roots easier. Some pages load slowly - be patient and you will be rewarded. Can select many other countries to find your Jewish ancestors.

Poland Gen Web - http://www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/polandgen.html

Get hints about tracing ancestors, translate former German town names into modern Polish ones, see birth and death records, and post queries.

Polish Roots Guides - http://www.polishroots.org/genpoland/
www.polishroots.com/gendobry/GenDobry_vol1_no1.htm www.polishroots.com/genpoland/geninfo3.htm

http://www.pgsnys.org/Links/surnamedb.html

The purpose of these sites is to bring together a range of Internet based information sources on Poland and Polish research.

Hungarian Research - http://www.rootsweb.com/~wghungar/ - Provides the tools, resources, and contacts needed to achieve success in researching Hungarian roots.

Canadian Archives and Census - http://www.archives.ca/02/020122_e.html - Some of the links lead to general information while others lead to actual records, such as the 1901 Census with hints that lead to the Canadian census of 1851 to 1901. Some indexes and censuses are online http://www.archives.ca/02/02020205_e.html with lists of abbreviations that help to decipher the columns, especially the religion column.

Canadian Military in First World War and Their Records http://www.archives.ca/02/020106_e.html - Databases of 600,000 soldiers 1914 –1918.

Pre-1800 Quebec Records - http://www.genealogy.umontreal.ca/en/main.htm - Indexes that lead to records of the Quebec area pre 1800. You can search the databases before enrolling or purchasing. You can navigate on the site free of charge and also conduct a first-level search. The information that you can obtain at this level will be limited, but it will allow you to check whether the database contains information on the ancestor(s) you are interested in. Subscription enables you to obtain complete information and to navigate between the different components of the database. 150 hits for $11.1090 is the beginning subscription up to 1000 hits for $182.78. Each page counts as a hit and you can renew when you run out.

A multi-country currency converter - http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Canadian On-line searches - http://www.census-online.com/links/Canada/ - Links to what actual Canadian Census are on the Internet. Is constantly growing.

Cyndi’s Canadian Links - http://www.cyndislist.com/gencan.htm#Records and a listing of Genealogical and Historical Web sites from East to Western Sea http://www.islandnet.com/~jveinot/cghl/cghl.html.

Germans From Russia – North Dakota - http://www.grhs.com/research.html

Surname Exchanges; village projects; regional Websites and research regions

the Village Coordinators who represent the Black Sea German villages, the Area Coordinators who represent geographical areas within the US and Canada, and the Clearing House which coordinates research activities.

American Historical Society of Germans From Russia – Lincoln, Nebraska http://www.ahsgr.org – “An international organization dedicated to the discovery, collection, preservation, and dissemination of information related to the history, cultural heritage and genealogy of Germanic Settlers in the Russian Empire and their descendants.”

German Genealogy - http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/edatbase.htm - This site offers an exhaustive list of links, from databases to maps of Germany throughout the ages, to antiquarian booksellers.

German LEO Translator - http://dict.leo.org/ - Has been updated with 314217 entries.

Odessa Library - http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/library/odessa.html – Click on Library and be lead into fantastic information about Odessa and Germans from Russia.

Berlin Document Center - http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/library/berlin.html - A valuable site for researching the families that stayed behind in Russia or Germany. This site is listed as part of the Odessa Library home page.

Ireland, the Celtic Connection - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/8088/ire.html

A site worth checking out even though some of the links you need to drill downs and some even lead to no where. Along the way you do glean very good information that can further Irish research.

Ireland GenWeb Project - http://irelandgenealogyprojects.rootsweb.com/ - The 1840’s potato famine fueled the migration of thousands of Irish to the US. The Ireland GenWeb Project shares the usual surname, map links and links to tips specific to Irish research. Very good site.

African and Slave Research

African Genealogy - http://www.ccharity.com/ - Christine Charity's site is an especially helpful one for researching African-American ancestors. The links lead to information about the post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau records, African genealogy, related articles and databases.

Freedmen's Bureau - http://freedmensbureau.com/

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established by the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865 and includes personnel records and a variety of standard reports concerning bureau programs and conditions in the states. The Bureau supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, Border States, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory. The bureau records were created or maintained by bureau headquarters, the assistant commissioners and the state superintendents of education and included personnel records and a variety of standard reports concerning bureau programs and conditions in the states.

Family History Research Classes

Karen Clifford’s short courses for beginners (Other instructors also)

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/university.html?Welcome=1028137319

Genealogy Guide - http://genealogy.about.com/ - A guide to various topics on genealogy that will lead you to further information or databases.

Personal Enrichment Course List - http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/catalog/pe.dhtm

Offers three sections of Family History/Genealogy Classes. The tuition price, usually $20, includes the price of required materials or text book.

Search Engines

Internet Tools - http://www.itools.com/ - Quick access to the best Internet tools

The Searcher - http://cpcug.org/user/jlacombe/search.html – Search and retrieve engines, indices, databases, etc. Plus pages with multiple search forms, and even multiple search devices that will check several databases at once.

Surname Navigator - http://www.rat.de/kuijsten/navigator/ - Genealogy International (Global) family search.

Miscellaneous

Library Spot - http://www.libraryspot.com/ - Access to most libraries and any reference question that you would like answered.

Writers Digest http://www.writersdigest.com/101sites/2002_index.asp - Track the Web's 101 hottest, most useful writing sites of 2002 and 2001!

Online Encyclopedias - http://www.freeality.com/encyclopt.htm – Multiple encyclopedias to check out that strange word or phrase, plus other links.

St. Louis County Library - http://199.181.178.210/ - National Genealogy Society donated most of their genealogy collection to SLCL for researchers to interlibrary loan.

Free Lookups - http://www.genlookups.com/ - A directory for genealogy lookup volunteers both on this site and around the web.

Census Tools - http://www.censustools.com/ - Spreadsheets for census, military, etc. are available to download covering the U.S., Canada, England, Ireland & Scotland.

Map site - http://monarch.tamu.edu/~maps2/ - A research tool of maps with or without county borders. You create an image, which can be printed or saved, to a .gif file for later use. Maps can be created with one color or multiple colors and can include a title and description.

Place Name Finder - http://www.placesnamed.com/default.asp – Can find defunct places as well as zip codes. Read “About Us” to achieve maximum results.

American Local History Network - http://www.alhn.org/ - Enter into independent, genealogical and historical web sites and find interesting historical tidbits.

Time Capsule - http://www.dmarie.com/timecap/ - Quick Page will automatically generate a Time Capsule page and Advanced Page will lead you through a "wizard" that allows you to select specific headlines, birthdays, songs, TV shows, toys, and books for the selected date. You can edit the information, or add your own information.

Scrapbook Hints, etc. - http://dMarie.com - contains over 13,000 online scrapbook layouts, discussion boards, chat rooms, poetry database, page toppers database, and more!

Hoaxes - http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxIndex.html – Before you forward warnings about virus or a story, check out this site to see if the “tale” is listed.

Myths, and Scams - http://www.cyndislist.com/myths.htm#Consumer – Concerns genealogy myths with answers.

Family Reunion Organizer - http://www.family-reunion.com/ - Mister Spiffy will lead you by the hand from A to Z in planning a perfect reunion.

Sharing Family Stories - http://www.genealogytoday.com/family/stories/serendipity.html Genealogical discoveries with a little help from above – pure entertainment…

September 24, 2001 Website File Information

(Presented by Athna May Porter)

Before getting started in performing research “on the web” it is best to establish a methodology to prepare for the storing of information, and its subsequent retrieval. This first vital link will make your life easy as the material sources increase.

Ø Search Engines and How to Work With Them

Ø Setting up Subject Directories

Ø Performing Keyword Searches

Ø Meta search Tool Listings

Ø Subject Specific Searches

Ø Search Engine Techniques

Search Engines and How to Work With Them

Combination of text by Author Unknown and Athna May Porter

To access your search engine faster, turn off images by selecting Options - Advanced – uncheck Show Pictures. (Specifies whether graphical images should be included when pages are displayed. When this check box is cleared, an X will be displayed where the picture should be on the Web page. You can display an individual image by right-clicking the icon that represents the graphic and then clicking Show Picture.) Note: *** denotes excellent search engines.

When you select a search tool to use read the help screen for tips for a successful search.

***Copernic 2001 Basic www.copernic.com is a free meta one-step access to 80 search engines grouped into 7 categories. It places most relevant hits on top usually without duplicates. Once downloaded, you have the choice of having the search icon loaded as your main search engine or as an icon on your desktop and toolbar. A built-in tool bar provides online translation into seven languages. English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. More powerful editions are for sale.

Subject Directories

Advantage - reduces the number of documents

Disadvantage – may be too limiting

Excite - http://www.excite.com/

Infoseek - http://www.go.com

Point.com - http://www.pointcom.com/

Search.com - http://www.search.com/

Virtual Subject Engines - http://www.virtualfreesites.com/search.subjects.html

WWW Virtual Library - http://www.w3.org/pub/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html must sign up to access

Yahoo! - http://www.yahoo.com

Keyword Searches

Advantage - zeros in on key points on common subjects

Disadvantage - sometimes hard to use. Not always the same rules apply.

AltaVista - http://www.altavista.digital.com

Excite - http://www.excite.com

Galaxy - http://www.einet.net/

HotBot - http://www.hotbot.com

Lycos - http://www.lycos.com

Northern Light - http://www.nlsearch.com/

Open Text - http://index.opentext.com/

WebCrawler - http://www.webcrawler.com

MetaSearch Tools

Advantage – can use multiple keyword indexes

Disadvantage – searches take longer

Ask Jeeves - http://www.askjeeves.com

Cyberview 411 - http://www.cyber411.com/

Dogpile - http://www.dogpile.com/

Highway 61 - http://www.highway61.com

MetaCrawler - http://www.metacrawler.com

***The Searcher - http://cpcug.org/user/jlacombe/search.html – a really good one

Subject-Specific Search Engines

Advantage – limits search to one subject

Disadvantage – search engines tend to move around with address changes

BigBook - http://www.bigbook.com - listings and addresses of more than 17 million businesses

City Net - http://www.City.Net/ - provides information on certain cities around the world

Classmates on Line - http://www.classmates.com/ - schools and alumni sign up fee to access personal information in order to contact classmates listed

CollegeNET - http://www.collegenet.com/ - U.S. colleges and universities

Google/Deja News - http://www.dejanews.com/ - USENET news articles

Four 11 - http://www.four11.com/ - people locator

***The History Net - http://www.TheHistoryNet.com/ -12 History Group magazines updated weekly

Internet @Address Finder - http://www.iaf.net/ - put your Internet Address out there; locate others

MapQuest - http://www.mapquest.com/ - find locations and print maps of the world

Movie Link - http://www.moviefone.com/ - provides movie information by zip code

***Research-It! - http://www.iTools.com/research-it/research-it.html - Dictionary, Thesaurus, Translator, Library Tools, Quotations, Geographical Tools, Telephone, and Facts searches

Switchboard - http://www.switchboard.com/ - personal phone numbers

Who Where Lycos - http://www.whowhere.com/ - people locator

Search Engine Techniques

+ Searches

Most search engines ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Search Engines will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a + sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the + sign.) The word, the, is so common it is not considered in searches.

For example, to search for Genealogy in Kentucky enter Genealogy +Kentucky

- Searches

Sometimes what you're searching for has more than one meaning. "Graves" can refer to a surname or a grave in a cemetery. You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign - immediately in front of the term you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign.)

For example, to find web pages about Graves Family and not cemeteries Graves -cemetery

Phrase Searches

Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all results exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searches are especially useful when searching for famous sayings or proper names. You may need to use a + to force inclusion of very common words. (See + search information above.)

For example (“John Graves”) –cemetery

Certain characters serve as phrase connectors. Most search engines recognize hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs, and apostrophes as phrase connectors. Phrase connectors work like quotes; for example, mother-in-law is treated as a phrase even if the three words aren't in quotes.

OR Searches

Search Engines supports the logical OR operator. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms.

For example, to search for Germany, maps and hotels, enter germany maps OR hotels

Domain Restrict

If you know the website you want to search but are not sure where the information is located within that site, you can use most search engines to search only that domain. Do this by entering what you're looking for followed by the word "site" and a colon followed by the domain name.

For example, to find the surname site on Ancestry’s site, enter surname site:www.ancestry.com

SOME MORE OF THE BEST GENEALOGY SITES ON THE WEB for 2001-2002

By Athna May Porter

Be sure to let the Site fully load.

Be sure to scroll down the site to see what all is available before jumping in.

*Top Sites

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtygf/ - Yellowstone Genealogy Forum – Webmaster Cleve Kimmel keeps us up to date on YGF and other’s genealogy activities.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtygf/websites.htm – The link from YGF listing the sites used in my other two Internet Classes of 1999 and 2000.

http://www.genealogylinks.net/ Genealogylinks.net consists of 400 pages of over 9,000 links; most of them to online surname searchable records such as ship's passenger lists, church records, cemetery transcriptions, military records and censuses for USA, UK, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Europe, Canada, Australia & New Zealand.

http://genealogytoday.com/home.html – Genealogy Today - Searchable surname queries, genealogy news, articles, research tips and more.

*Census

http://www.censustools.com/ now has 35 spreadsheets available covering the U.S., Canada, England, Ireland and Scotland! Among the U.S. collection are spreadsheets for all federal records as well as the states of Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.

*Maps

http://www.davidrumsey.com/ David Rumsey’s 18^th & 19^th century maps – 5468 maps must download a browser to view the maps (takes about 30 min.)

http://www.stjernberg.com/maps/mapguide.htm – The Map Guide and Links to other map sites.

*Passenger Lists and Photos of Ships

http://www.ellisisland.org/ - Ellis Island - LDS project of searchable, scanned NY passenger lists of Immigrants from 1892 – 1924. Click on “About AFIHC” to read the site explanation. You can place your names on the wall of honor via the Internet instead of having to mail in the paper work. ($100 per name) Printable ship pictures or sketches available.

http://members.aol.com/rprost/passenger.html – Passenger lists on the Internet lists many links to other passenger lists from everywhere.

*Fraternal Organizations and Associations

http://www.exonumia.com/art/society.htm - A complete listing of all secret society, fraternal organizations and fraternal orders with abbreviations includes slogans and mottoes. Some have links, those that do not, try finding them through the search engines.

*Libraries

http://library5.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html Cornell University – Browse – Searchable Biographies, Magazines, War of Rebellion Books - can click on main for homepage.

http://199.181.178.210/search/ - St. Louis County Library - National Genealogy Society NGS is in the process of sending part of their book collection to St. Louis, MO. These books can be sent out on loan to researchers anywhere.

http://www.ipl.org/ - Internet Public Library - click on reference – click on reference – click on genealogy (45 hits) – type in genealogy in subject box (53 hits). So much more than genealogy.

http://www.publiclibraries.com/ - Public Libraries - Here you will find the most extensive directory of public libraries of the United States and its’ holdings. (Parmly Billings Library)

*Colonial Research

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/index.html

Covers tons of topics and links to Colonial life and history. Contains 1840 Pensioners Index.

*Funeral Homes, Cemeteries, and Obituary Links

http://www.nfda.org/memorials/html/funeralhome_pop.html – Locate funeral homes by name or place and contains some obituaries.

http://interment.net/Default.htm Interment.net is a publisher of cemetery records and materials relating to cemeteries - not affiliated with RootsWeb, USGenWeb, Ancestry.com, or any other organization.

*Military

http://www.seniornet.org/ww2/ - tells about the WWII Memorial being built for WWII participants. Can leave your thoughts and stories on this site. Links to other WWII sites.

http://www.dhc.net/~revwar/index.html - Revolutionary War Period Bible, Family and Marriage Records – can browse alphabetically or by surname.

*Freebies for Genealogists

http://www.free-graphics.com/ - Over 30,000 Free Clipart Images, such as animated gifs, icons, backgrounds, bullets, clip art, and pictures; all free for you to download. Browse the many pages on this site, or, follow one of the countless number of great links that will take you to other sites.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/7923/ - Chris’s Genealogy Graphics

*Language Dictionaries

http://www.histopia.nl/onldict/lat.html - Freeware Dictionary Program converts 16 languages to English or vice versa. Latin, Italian, French, Hungarian, Scandinavian languages, Dutch, Russian etc.

http://www.itools.com/research-it/ - Dictionary, Thesaurus, Translator, Library Tools, Quotations, Geographical Tools, Telephone, and Facts searches

*Surname Searches

http://www.familyhistory.com/ Ancestry.com – take you quickly to message boards where you can do a broad or narrow search on surnames, localities, or topics.

*German Research

http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/genealogy.html – Genealogy.Net - General information and tips on how to go about finding out more about your German ancestors. Translations, explanations of German records (Hamburg, Germans to America), town locators, sample letters, societies, town genealogies, etc.

*Canadian Research

http://www.rootsweb.com/~canwgw/ - Canada’s Gen Web Project. The Canada GenWeb Project was begun in 1997 and is modeled after the USGenWeb Project.

http://www.virtuel.qc.ca/simmons/ Quebec and Eastern Townships Genealogy Research Page - indexes over 575,000 church, cemetery, census, and newspaper articles.

*Dictionary

http://www.rhymezone.com/ - Rhyming dictionary to improve your writing about your ancestors

*Encyclopedia

http://www.freeality.com/encyclopt.htm – Freeality Internet Search – Lets you search many encyclopedias and other great sources.

*Virus Check Program

http://www.housecall.antivirus.com/ - HouseCall for Windows is a free excellent system for finding virus-infected files already resident on your computer’s hard drive. If you think you may have a computer virus, go to HouseCall’s Web site and test your hard drive. Check your hard drive often.

September 2000 Website File Information (Archived)

Search Engines

AltaVista General purpose http://www.altavista.com/

Dogpile The Friendly Multi-Engine http://www.dogpile.com/

FastSearch http://www.alltheweb.com

GoogleCom http://www.google.com

Special Web Sites to Consider

Top Site

http://www.worldwide-top100.net/tops5/index.html

Rates top 100 sites every five days

Various Kinds of Maps

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

Library of Congress American Memory Map Collections: 1544 - 1996

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pmhtml/panhome.html

The Geography and Map Division holds more than 4.5 million items. The focus of Map Collections: 1544 - 1996 is Americana and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress.

http://feefhs.org/maps/indexmap.html

The FEEFHS (Federation of East European Family History Societies) East European Map Room has a 51-map collection from the Comprehensive Atlas and Geography of the World that covers almost all of central and eastern Europe, including all of the German Empire and the Russian Empire. This includes European Russia (east to the Urals) and trans-Ural Asian Russia (Siberia and the Pacific).

U.S. Surname Distribution Maps

http://www.hamrick.com/names/index.html

Data is from the 1850, 1880, 1920 Census, and 1990's phone books. Note that the Census data is a sampling of 1 in 100 names, so the 1990 data is the most accurate. The color of each state indicates how frequently you will find someone with this surname in each state. For instance, if a state is colored red, then 1 in 100 people (or more) in that state has the surname. Similarly, yellow means approximately 1 in 300 have the surname, green means 1 in 1000, and blue means 1 in 10,000 (or less). This map is often helpful when trying to determine a starting point for genealogy projects.

Prints and Photos of Ships

http://www.kinshipsprints.com/prints.htm

KinShips offer images of passenger ships, contemporary maritime advertising art, European costume, and European royalty. Ships primarily in service, between 1890 and 1930, sailing between Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. Arranged alphabetically by ship name, currently there are images for more than 300 ships. See the most recent additions in the list of new ships.

Passenger Lists Immigrants Ships Transcribers Guild

http://istg.rootsweb.com/

http://istg.rootsweb.com/index2.html

Search by date (centuries), ship, departure, arrival, captains name and surnames

CA Birth and Death Indexes

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ca/birth/search.cgi

Records: 24596235 Surnames: 984961 Data contains records from 1905 through 1995

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi

Records: 9366786 Surnames: 498701 Data contains records from 1940 through 1997

Fraternal Organizations and Associations Odd Fellows

http://128.125.109.137/IOOF.shtml

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) was founded on the North American Continent in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 26, 1819. Click on Lodge Telephone Book to find addresses and links to Odd Fellow Societies everywhere.

MayFlower Society

Passengers on the famous ship, how to join, addresses of state societies.

http://www.mayflower.org

America's First Families

Honors our Ancestors From the 1600'S

http://www.linkline.com/personal/xymox/

Associated Daughters of Early American Witches

http://www.adeaw.org/

To locate the living female descendants of all witches who were accused in the American colonies prior to published records.

Orphan Train Society

Between 1853 and 1930, 200,000 American children rode the Orphan Train.

http://pda.republic.net/othsa/

Heraldry

Links to just about everything to do with heraldry and coats of arms.

http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry

Volunteer Look-ups

http://raogk.rootsweb.com/index.html

The volunteers of this movement are agreeing once per month to either videotape cemeteries, etc., or to visit county courthouses in the county (or area of a country) where they live. The cost to you would be reimbursement of costs incurred in granting your request (videotape, copy fees, etc.).

Obituary Links

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/7748/obit/obituary.htm

The philosophy of these pages is to give researchers a direct link to online obituary and related resources. Some of these links are to county pages such as found on USGenWeb, GenConnect, and Rootsweb sites.

Cemeteries

http://www.totentanz.de/cemetery.htm

A very good listing of US cemeteries that been cataloged with online cemetery catalogs from around the world.

Medical Terms

http://www.mic.ki.se/Diseases/alphalist.html

http://onhealth.webmd.com/conditions/resource/dictionary/index.asp

Both old and new definitions of the medical terms is explained.

Town/County Locator

http://resources.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/townco.cgi

RootsWeb Town & County Search Site

Mailing lists

http://lists.rootsweb.com/

A complete index to RootsWeb's 19,209+ genealogy mailing lists!

Military Mailing Lists

http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Military/

US Army Center of Military History

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg

For military records, unit records and more

The Naval Historical Center

http://www.history.navy.mil

US Civil War Center

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/

Records of units, battlefields, lifestyles, cemeteries, historic parks, etc

World War1 Draft Registration

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ww1/draft/

Genealogy Books On Line

http://genweb.net/~blackwell/books.html

Actual books that have been transcribed or scanned into the Internet

Freebies for Genealogists

http://www.1stopfreeshop.com/genealogy.htm

Relationship Charts

http://www.1stopfreeshop.com/genealogy.htm

How to figure out just how you are related Use Freebies site - there are 2 listed.

Free form letters

Write genealogy letters to foreign countries in English and it will be converted automatically to their language.

http://www.genealogy.com/00000023.html

Two free translations services

http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran

http://www.freetranslation.com/

Language Dictionaries

www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html
1000 dictionaries in 200 languages

President's Genealogy

http://www.dcs.hull.ac.uk/public/genealogy/presidents/index.html

Surname Searches

http://www.genforum.genealogy.com

http://www.gendex.com:8080/

Native American Research

http://www.hometown.aol.com/bbbenge/front.html

Features histories, personal genealogies and tribal information of Cherokee, Lakota and Choctaw tribes.

WorldGen Web Project

http://www.worldgenweb.org

This not-for-profit group shares all data collected free of charge in their 11 geographic regions that are divided into individual countries. This site is always growing.

German Research

Links from databases to maps.

http://www.bawue.de/%7Ehanacek/info/edatbase.htm

Polish Research

http://members.nbci.com/agadadm/

Click on the English translation of what civil and church records are available with forms to use for your requests.

Scandinavian Research

http://www.nordicnotes.com

History of the Nordic region with emigration patterns & surname searches.

Canadian Research

Links with listings for each province with cemetery and military information. http://www.islandnet.com/~jveinot/cghl/cghl.html

Russian Research

http://www.mtu-net.ru/rrr/

Good description of records available in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and how to begin researching.

Italian Research

http://cimorelli.com/pie/piehome.htm

PIE stands for Pointers In E-mail, POINT stands for Pursuing Our Italian Names Together.

Historical Research

http://www.thehistorynet.com/

The History Net - Where history lives on the net

http://www.ourtimelines.com/

Build a time line for past and present family members

Telephone Books and Tools

http://www.bigbook.com/

On-line Yellow Pages

http://www.dialpad.com/

FREE long distance - need headset.on base computer, regular phone on the other end. [It really works!]

Books Out of Print

http://whipper.abebooks.com/

Abe's Book Service (Search Author, Title, Keyword, Publisher)

http://www.glbco.com/default.htm

Blair's Book Service

http://www.powellsbooks.com/

Powells Book Service

Dictionary

http://www.m-w.com/

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Encyclopedia

http://www.britannica.com/

Britannica Encyclopedia

OTHER BEST SITES For SURNAME RESEARCH

USGenWeb Project

http://usgenweb.org/

This is the central Web site for the nationwide project to organize, state by state, county by county, genealogical resources onto Web pages. You will find everything you need to understand each state's resources-from archives, genealogical and historical societies, special historical resources, special projects and more-all produced, presented and maintained by volunteers on a vast collection of Web sites.

GenConnect

http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/qindex.html

Many of the participants in the USGenWeb, WorldGenWeb, American Civil War Roots Genealogy and History, and other projects are using GenConnect to make it easy for you to post your queries and share your data in the areas where your research is focused.

RootsWeb

http://rootsweb.org/

RootsWeb provides access to an incredible collection of genealogical resources. One of the most important resources here is an up-to-date listing of every genealogical mailing list (listserv), and instructions for how to subscribe. At this writing, there are more than 63,000 mailing lists! If you aren't subscribed to mailing lists for the surnames you are actively researching, geographical areas you are researching, historical periods, military conflicts, and a vast array of other topics, you are missing out on a major investigative opportunity. In addition, there are some state databases and archives of some of the mailing lists' messages, surname resources, links to other Web sites, and many other online resources.

Family Search

http://www.familysearch.org

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has recently established a free Web site. It provides access to an online database providing an exceptional search facility for locating ancestors with references to the Mormon (LDS) resources that are available in or through LDS family history centers, Web sites, and other materials of interest. (IGI and Ancestral File)

GENDEX Index of Surnames

http://www.gendex.com:8080/

This tremendous free database is a compilation of many genealogists' research and one of the best organized integrated databases around. Here you can search by surname, then ranges of given names, locate specific names, and view vital information for the individual. If parent or spouse information exists in the database, you can surf through links to other records in the database to see records for those people as well.

Census Online

http://www.census-online.com/

This site contains the beginnings of the project to transcribe and place all census material online. You will find material categorized by state, county, then census year. Within the year, names are organized alphabetically.

The Census Online

http://www.doitnow.com/~moravia/census.html

This site contains census records, passenger lists, and other materials online. It is well worth a look.

A Barrel of Genealogical Links

http://cpcug.org/user/jlacombe/mark.html

Here is another collection of links to many excellent Web sites. Once you get past the author's personal material, there is much great data for your reference.

The Genealogy SiteFinder

http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/links

This site proclaims, "A comprehensive directory of genealogy sites on the Internet, featuring 71,829 categorized and cross-indexed links with full descriptions, brought to you by genealogy.com and Helm's Genealogy Toolbox."

The Genealogy Gateway

http://www.gengateway.com

Has a huge collection of genealogy-related links. Owner Steve Lacy declares, "Well Over 70,000 Resource Listings".

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Web

http://www.cyndislist.com

Cyndi Howells has, over the past several years, compiled the definitive collection of over 78,100 categorized sites for excellent research reference. If you're looking for any genealogical research topic, Cyndi's list is the place to start.

NBC Best Sites

http://www.msnbc.com/news/254376.asp?cp1=1

Best research sites picked by NBC during a genealogy feature on television.

Zip Code Directory

http://zipcode.com/

Handy for finding zip codes especially when the post office is closed.

Telephone Directories

http://people.yahoo.com

http://switchboard.com

Just to name a few. Also a good one with Ancestry.com

Treasure Map Newsletter

http://www.firstct.com/fv/tmapmenu.html