Hello everyone!
Welcome to my Genealogy Research Series: FINDING ONLINE RECORDS.
Have you ever wondered about your family history? Where did we come from? What is OUR story?
Follow along with me in this Genealogy Research Series post and learn how FINDING ONLINE RECORDS can help you with your family history journey. In this lesson, I will walk you through what online records are available and where to find them.
SECOND FAVORITE HOBBY IN AMERICA
Tracing our family’s history can be fun, in fact, genealogy is the 2nd most popular hobby in America.
The internet makes billions of online records available at our fingertips, and as a result, you can quickly be on your way to building a family tree!
HOW DO WE FIND ONLINE RECORDS?
How do you go about finding online records?
Believe it or not, there are billions of online records that are available at our fingertips, thus if you have access to the internet you should have no trouble finding online records.
Gone are the days of traveling to far away places to search for information about your ancestors. You used to have to gather all the information you could get from family members, and then you had to actually GO to courthouses, cemeteries and libraries to get the information you needed to learn about your ancestors.
Today its easier than ever to find online records and you can do it from your kitchen table, in your PJs.
WHAT TYPES OF ONLINE RECORDS CAN BE FOUND?
Online records are available on lots of genealogy websites and some of the records are free, although some are accessed only through paid subscriptions.
Genealogy websites contain many online records that are digitized copies of the original documents, therefore traveling to the places that hold the original documents becomes unnecessary. Here is a list of the types of online records you can find.
- Birth records
- Death records
- Marriage records
- Tax records
- Cemetery records
- Military records
- City directories
- and many other types of records that can be searched for in online databases
WHAT GENEALOGY WEBSITES HAVE ONLINE RECORDS?
One of my favorite sites is Ancestry.com and consequently, I literally have spent 100s of hours on that site over the years. The amount of online records is insane! At the time of this writing, Ancestry.com had over 6 billion online records. I can spend hours and hours at this site and never get enough of it, but don’t let that keep you from the other sites. You can find information at other genealogy websites that you can’t find on Ancestry, therefore be sure and check them out.
GENEALOGY WEBSITES WITH SEARCHABLE RECORDS
Here is a list of 10 very popular online genealogy sites that require memberships, however, some of these sites offer a free trial membership and limited use free accounts.
- Ancestry.com
- MyHeritage.com
- Geni.com
- Newspapers.com
- Archives
- Genealogy.com
- Fold3
- Genealogy Bank
- FindMyPast
- USGenWeb Archives
FREE GENEALOGY WEBSITES
Some of these websites are totally free, and some you can access more features with paid subscriptions, but for the most part, they are free to use.
- FindAGrave
- AccessGenealogy
- OliveTreeGenealogy
- FamilySearch
- FamilyTreeNow
- USGenWebArchives
- Cyndi’sList.com
- BillionGraves.com
- JewishGen
- GenealogyTrails
- TheStatueofLiberty-EllisIslandFoundation
- DeathIndexes
- NationalArchives
This is just a small list of genealogy websites that contain the online records you need to learn about your ancestors.
When I did a search for genealogy online records I got 25 million hits, so take this list and jump right in and build that tree!
STAY TUNED!
Stay tuned to the Genealogy Research Series for tips on how to trace your family tree.
Remember, I will teach you what records will help you learn about your ancestors and where to find them.
So, if you are interested in tracing your family tree and don’t know where to begin, or if you have been just dabbling with genealogy a little bit and are ready to get serious about it, then stick around for lots of information to guide you on your journey.
You can go to this page for a list of other posts and videos in this series that are guaranteed to guide you in your search for ancestors!
Until then,
HAPPY HUNTING!
23 Comments
Leave your reply.