Websites for Family History Beginners

Introduction

There are many family history web sites that can help a beginner with their research. This article will list web sites that can be used at the Family History Library, family history centers, from home, or wherever one has access to the Internet such as cyber cafes or libraries.

Electronic Family Trees and Family Websites

1. FamilySearch: Largest free online collection of genealogical databases including Ancestral File, International Genealogical Index, 1880 U.S. federal census index, Pedigree Resource File, U.S. Social Security Death Index, and the Vital Records Index—North America.
2. RootsWeb: A free genealogy community which makes use of online forums and mailing lists to help people research their family history. RootsWeb was founded in 1993 by Dr. Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson as the Roots Surname List, and quickly grew from there. It is the oldest free community genealogy research site. RootsWeb was acquired by MyFamily.com in June 2000. Users can also upload a GEDCOM of their information for others to view.

Research Aids

3. FamilySearch Wiki: The FamilySearch research Wiki is similar to Wikipedia in nature. It is a place to search for any genealogical information to help you with your research. This page is a part of the FamilySearch Wiki.
4. BYU Guides and Tutorials: This website includes online family history tutorials and area-specific research guides.

Genealogical Directories

5. ProGenealogists: A professional genealogical company that does family history research. Their web site includes two specific pages that have useful links, a United States Genealogy Sleuth page, and an International Genealogy Sleuth page. Both of these pages are filled with links to other genealogy web sites.
6. Cyndi's List: A large genealogical directory that can be searched by location or topic. Select a location or topic, then select a category of records or topics. Scroll to the specific record or topic desired.
7. Family Genealogy and History Internet Education Directory: a humanities and social sciences portal with a large collection of primary or secondary database records.
8. A genealogy guide for finding vital records: Online birth and marriage records indexes and records for the United States. It is a genealogy guide for finding vital records, arranged by state. For death records and indexes, see http://www.deathindexes.com.

Original Records

9. FamilySearch Record Search: Free index to U.S., Canada, and international records. For the U.S., it includes selected federal and state censuses; birth, marriage, and death records; funeral home records, Freedman's Bank and Freedman's Bureau records; military pensions; probate records; passenger lists; WWI draft registrations; and land records. Check back often as this web site is updated with new records regularly.

10. Ancestry or Ancestry Institution $: Ancestry is a paid site, but if you are in the Family History Library you may have the Family History Library access free. This access is called Ancestry Institution. 

11. HeritageQuest $: The Family History Library has access to this web site. Free at Family History Library, larger family history centers, and many public libraries. Check with your local public or academic library for free access to HeritageQuest. Web site includes indexes and images to U.S. federal censuses 1790-1820, 1860-1880, and 1900-1930, over 22,000 family and local histories, 2 million genealogical periodical articles, Revolutionary War pension and bounty-land warrants, Freedman’s Bank records, and U.S. congressional records.
12. Footnote.com $: Free at Family History Library and many family history centers. Digital original sources such as naturalizations, Revolutionary War papers, Civil War papers, Mormon Battalion pensions, newspapers, Southern Claims Commission, and Texas births and deaths.

13. World Vital Records $: A central web site for accessing vital records around the world. Free access available at many family history centers.
14. USGenWeb: Free web sites for genealogy research in every state and county in the United States.
15. WorldGenWeb: Free web sites for genealogy research in different countries of the world.

Books

16. BYU Family History Archives: The Family History Archives is a collection of digitized books that can be viewed online. The collection includes family histories, series, and some oral histories. It is sponsered by the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee library.
17. Google: Google Books contains a large number of public-domain books of family histories and genealogies, plus many local and regional histories of value to the researcher.

Libraries

18. WorldCat: WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 71,000 libraries in 112 countries[1] which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 150 million different records pointing to over 1.4 billion physical and digital assets in more than 470 languages.[1] It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other fee-based OCLC services.
19. International Library Index by Country: This is a listing of academic and public libraries around the world. Choose the country first, then go to the specific locality.

Maps and Gazetteers

20. United States and its Territories Geographic Names Information System: The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database that contains name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features located throughout the United States of America and its territories. It is a type of gazetteer. GNIS was developed by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to promote the standardization of feature names.

21. Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names: This website allows you to search for a geographic name and shows the heirarchy of jurisdictions associated with that location.
22. David Rumsey Map Collection: A collection of over 21,000 historic maps online. The web site includes a link to the David Rumsey Blog for additional information.
23. Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection is an extensive collection of maps at The University of Texas at Austin. Many have been scanned and are available online, most of which are public domain

Passenger Lists

24. Ellis Island: 1892-1924 New York City passenger arrival index showing ethnicity, arrival date, residence, age, ship, port of departure, passenger manifest image, and ship’s image. The best index for this site is at Ellis Island in One Step.
25. US Passenger Lists: This web site includes internet sources for transcribed passenger records and indexes.
26. The Olive Tree Genealogy: A web site that includes free genealogical records; genealogical help and tutorials, and resource guides.

Search Engines

27. Google
28. DogPile:DogPile is a metasearch engine. It gathers information from several search engines and displays them under one search site. This allows the user to search several search engines with only one display list.
29. Clusty: Clusty is also a metasearch engine, but the results are delivered in clusters of information.
30. Steve Morse: Steve Morse is a genealogical search web page.

State Archives

31. Council of State Archivists: This web site lists each state alphabetically and the web address of their state archives.

Related Wiki Article

See also Major Databases for Beginning United States Research.

International Genealogical Index (FamilySearch) - free