Some tips for beginners and others who may wish to review what and where to research:

This takes you to the National Genealogical Society webpage.

The USGenWeb has information for researchers, including how to do queries, where to search, and genealogy terminology.

Ancestry Inc. has a basic beginner's how-to information source on genealogy.

This organization records the genealogy of as many individuals as possible all over the world - the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is the "start-here" page to learn how to use their records online. Basic steps to researching your family and forms to print if you wish are included. All genealogists search their records as they are so comprehensive.

This is a new area for the Otoe County webpage. Many residents of Otoe County are descendants of immigrants to this country. Sometimes we know little about those origins, and that is one of the reasons genealogy is such a popular activity.

One source for reference on the Internet is Cyndi's List. Cyndi Howells provides much access to ethnic research and her site includes ship passenger index information also. For all purpose research this is tops.

There are many lists to join for ethnic research. These usually emphasize a particular country or part of a country of origin. Persons who join a list receive email copies of all correspondence from others doing research in that same area. There are also webpages to view that have specific information on their area of interest.

For German research, here are some sources:

1. A general site for German and all kinds of genealogy research. Has an English-language portion as well as German.

2. Germans from Russia Heritage Collection Menu

3. German Migration Resource Center

4. Ostfriesen Research

Many German immigrants came from the northern part of Germany to America. They settled in the midwest states, including southeast Nebraska. On census records they are usually shown as from "Hanover" or "Prussia". The area is often actually in what is referred to as Ostfriesland. The private site below can lead you to many related ones, all with interest in that part of Germany.

Another attractive site features the landscape of Ostfriesland which is a land of canals and windmills. The authors also publish a magazine.

If you know of other specific ethnic sites which could be helpful to researchers of Otoe County, I will be happy to consider them.

A related area, that of ship's passenger lists, is usually of interest to researchers. Many of the ship lists are not transcribed, but indexes to the lists are available. These are on file at National Archives locations and some libraries.

A newly organized group, the Immigrant Ships Transcriber's Guild, was organized in August, 1998. This group of volunteers is busy transcribing specific ship passenger lists. The site is currently on Rootsweb at the address below, but as it grows is said to change to a new Resource Center. A lot of information has been added in the past year. To get a look at what is there now, go to:

These are good for research, and also have areas of getting-started information for researchers. Although they are commercial sites, they offer free searching to researchers.

CYNDI'S LIST - one of the most popular resources on the Internet. Cyndi Howells offers thousands of links by category and adds more regularly.