Internet Genealogy for Beginners

Getting Started

Still No "Big Book"--but lots of little ones

Let the surfer beware--scams exist, and ethics matters

E-Mail, Mailing Lists, USENET Newsgroups and E-zines

If you don't have one, get an e-mail account. They are available free from Yahoo! and Hotmail. Next, you'll want someone to exchange mail with. 

The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is what most people think of as "the Internet." The Web's (relative) ease of use and graphic capabilities account in large part for the Internet's mass popularity. 

  1. McMillan Memorial Library's Local Genealogy Resources highlights McMillan's genealogy collection and includes websites of local organizations that might be of help for your research.

  2. Cyndi’s List, the best known subject guide to genealogical sites, covers over 250,000 sites in over 180 categories.  Use it.

  3. RootsWeb, home of Roots-L, the largest genealogical mailing list, also has a search engine for the USGenWeb archives and is the oldest Internet genealogy service.

  4. Social Security Death Index is probably the Web's best known genealogical database.

  5. Ancestry Inc., a major genealogical publisher, has search engines to numerous print sources as well as its own Ancestry World Tree. Some parts of the site are restricted to subscribers.

  6. Vital Records Information shows how to obtain official records of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces records for each U.S. county.  How to obtain birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates provides this information for records held at the state level.

  7. Family Search, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is immensely popular and worthwhile. 

Other Sites for Beginners

Not just genealogy...

With a little imagination, and the help of some of the above sites, you’ll also find many links to subjects not directly related to genealogy but still extremely useful, such as:

Online Genealogy Databases

 

This program can be found at :  http://www.mcmillanlibrary.org/programs/genealogy.html 

Last revised 01/16/08