Starting Your Family History. Start with yourself and go back.

Write down what you know and what you find.

How to links:
• Filling out Genealogical Forms, How to Use the Pedigree Chart & Family Group Sheet.
• 8 Rules for Properly Recording Names in Genealogy.

There are plenty of free charts and forms:
• Charts and forms: National Archives forms; Ancestry includes UK, US & Canada census forms, Family Tree Magazine.
• Everything you need to know about the US census, including forms, in an Ancestry Wiki article.
• Deed Research Notes.
• Passenger list and immigration forms at FamilyTree Magazine.
• Forms from the Irish Genealogy Toolkit.

Cemeteries and obituaries are a good place to start for more recent generations. If possible, visit local cemeteries. If not, try these online sites.

• SSDI, Social Security Death Index. On FamilySearch
• Obituary Daily Times.
• Find a Grave.
• Interment.net.
• BillionGraves.
• Tombstone Transcription Project.
• Names in Stone.
• U. S. veterans' cemeteries.
• American Battle Monuments Commission. U. S. military cemeteries abroad.
• National Graves Registration Project, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
• Obituaries Research Guide.
• Death Indexes Online. Follow the Blog to see updates.
• HeritageHub. Obituaries and death notices. Log in through your library.

Databases. Always check first with your local library. Many provide free access to various databases, either in the library or from home.
In particular, HeritageQuest, available only through libraries, includes the same census records as in Ancestry plus Revolutionary War records, obituaries, digitized books, and more.

Some Free General Databases:
• FamilySearch. Create a user name and password.
  Related: IGI Batch Numbers, British Isles.
• USGenWeb and World GenWeb.
• USGenWeb Archives. Quick links by state.
• Access Genealogy. Strong on Native American sources.
• U. S. National Archives, complete with their YouTube channel. See their list NARA holdings digitized by partners.
• Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library.

Subscription Databases $:
• Ancestry.com.
  Related: Ancestry Errors Wiki.
• Fold3. Mostly military.
• Godfrey Memorial Library. Connecticut and beyond. London Times, 19th c. newspapers.
• American Ancestors, New England Historic Genealogical Society. New England and beyond.
• FindMyPast, UK, Ireland, some U. S.

Some Specialized Databases:
• Annals of Genealogical Research, an open access journal.
• Dead Fred, a genealogical photo archive.
• Pre-1830 Bible Records for Revolutionary soldiers that can be found online.
• Biblerecords.com.
• Family Bible Index.
• Searching the DAR Americana Collection and NSDAR Archives.
• Patriot Research System, Sons of ther American Revolution.
• Student Name Index. Older school catalogs. From American Antiquarian Society.
• Ellis Island, passenger and ship search.
• Passenger lists of the Holland-America line 1900-1969. $.
• Families of the 1918 Pandemic, deaths.
• Genealogy Indexer. Largely Jewish and central and eastern European sources.
• Bookmarks: Trivia & Quick Ref See "Biography" section.

Newspapers provide much more than obituaries. Bookmarks: Full Text links to book, magazines, and newspapers -- many free.

Message Boards, etc.:

Current:
• Ancestry boards. Ancestry.com subscription not needed.
• RootsChat, British and Irish genealogy.
• Genealogy on Facebook. Extensive pdf list.

Resource Finders because there's always more places to look:

• Linkpendium.Resources by state and county.
• Cyndi's List.
• Online Genealogy Records and Resources
• U. S. Genealogy Records Directory.
• Where to Write for Vital Records.
• ArchiveGrid.
• Ancestor Hunt to find digital newspapers and other records.
• PERSI, Periodical Source Index at Allen County Public Library. Locate articles by place and topic.

How-To's:

• The Legal Genealogist. Search blog for topics and state names.
• Pat Hatcher Articles. 103 very useful short articles by a leading genealogist.
• ThoughtCo: Genealogy, blog and many how-to resources.
• GCPL Genealogy Research Guides. North Carolina focus.

Some Useful Tools:

• Steve Morse One Step Webpages: passenger lists and ships, US census and ED's, Canadian and British census, New York and Illinois records, calendars, characters in foreign alphabets, using maps, naturalizations, relationships.
• Soundex converter.
• Enumerator Instructions for the U. S. census, 1850-1950.
• Relationship chart.
• Another Relationship chart
• Perpetual calendar and other calendar information.
• Birth Date Calculator
• 1910 International Classification of Causes of Death. Interpreting numbers on death certificates. Successive revisions are also on line.
• Manifest Markings, A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations.
• First Name Abbreviations.
• Character Codes: Umlauted Vowels and Symbols.
• Bob's Genealogy Filing Cabinet -- hints and tips, mostly for the South and colonial period.


• See also Maps.

Miscellaneous:

• Handwriting, articles in the FamilySearch Wiki; Script Tutorial, making sense of old handwriting in many languages; What Does That Say, Series, pt. 1.
• Philatelic Genealogy.
• Fraudulent Genealogies.
• Cyndi"s List: Myths, Hoaxes, and Scams.
• Real Truth Behind Coats of Arms and Family Crests.
• Finding Your Royal Roots using Geni.com.
• Are All Europeans Descendants of Charlemagne?. Explains pedigree collapse.
• Fiction.
• Just a Joy. Find antiques related to your family.
• Family history on YouTube.

TV Shows:

• Who Do You Think You Are.
• Ancestors, 23 episodes.
• Finding Your Roots.
• Generations Project, 3 seasons.

This page last updated 18 Oct 2024.

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