Primary Sources Online

Ancestry.com  ($155.40 annually for US databases, $299.40 for all world data)
Still the premiere genealogy subscription site, Ancestry.com keeps getting bigger.  http://www.ancestry.com   Ancestry Library Edition is available inside all DBRL libraries. http://www.dbrl.org/reference/databases#genealogy  

Archives.com $ ($39.95 a year),
This growing site recently added more than 40 million vital records and 110 million scanned newspaper pages dating to 1753. Archives.com monitors additions to its collection and emails you an “ancestor alert” if it finds matches to your kin. Besides data, Archives.com offers easy-to-use online family trees you can build from scratch or upload a GEDCOM to, and will hook you up with local researchers who will do county-record legwork for a flat fee.  http://www.archives.com

Fold3  formerly Footnote.com  ($79.95 per year)
Thanks in part to its partnership with the National Archives and the Library of Congress, this subscription site has burgeoned to more than 72 million records, all searchable and linked to images of the originals. It’s strongest on military records, especially from the Civil War. http://www.fold3.com/

GenealogyBank  ($69.95 per year)
The go-to site for historical newspapers, GenealogyBank now offers more than 5,000 periodicals totaling 793 million articles, including a collection of African-American newspapers from 1827 to 1999, plus a variety of historical books and documents, military pension records and land grants.http://www.genealogybank.com

World Vital Records   ($39.96 per year for US data and $99.96 for all world data.)
Much more than just vital records, this site from FamilyLink now offers much of what you might subscribe to Ancestry.com for—including the complete US census collection and lots of historical newspapers. It’s also pioneering Web 2.0 technologies such as geocoding, allowing you to see information about an ancestor’s neighbors once you’ve found somebody in the Social Security Death Index. http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/

American Ancestors ($75 per year)    
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) still focuses on New England, but not exclusively. NEHGS members can search nearly 3,000 online databases.http://www.americanancestors.org

Historic Map Works  (pay per use or $29.99 a month, $249.99 a year)
No longer for libraries only, this subscription offers 1.5 million images, with more than 300,000 geocoded for its Historic Earth viewer. http://www.historicmapworks.com/

Find My Past   ($178 per year)
United Kingdom - complete census coverage (1841 to 1911), vital records, parish records, passenger records and more. A new project will digitize post-1832 UK electoral registers and records of baptisms, marriages and burials from the archives of the India Office.http://www.findmypast.co.uk/

Origins Network $  
About $90 a year buys you full access to this set of sites, or you can pick either the British Origins collection (including the National Wills index and 1841, 1861 and 1871 censuses) or Irish Origins for about $15.50 per month. Irish Origins includes the 1851 Dublin City Census, the Irish Wills Index (1484 to 1858) and 1890 passenger lists.

 

 

FamilySearch 
The new FamilySearch has a streamlined interface and new records from around the world. The Family History Library catalog has a new look, too, with auto-suggestions as you begin to type search terms. https://familysearch.org/

HeritageQuest Online 
Images of all US federal censuses, 28,000 family and local histories, the PERSI index to genealogical publications, Revolutionary War pension and bounty applications, Freedman’s Bank records, and the US Serial Set make this institutional site well worth your time. A subscription site through Daniel Boone Regional Library.  http://www.dbrl.org/reference/databases#genealogy

RootsWeb 
This pioneering volunteer site is showing its age, but is still useful.  WorldConnect pedigree files, records transcriptions, mailing lists, message boards and help files.http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com

USGenWeb 
Another volunteer site, USGenWeb remains a must-bookmark for its state and county pages.http://www.usgenweb.org/

Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System
Database of 6.3 million names from both sides. Each soldier’s listing links to a regimental history and capsule histories of battles. Also background on the social, economic, political and military aspects of the Civil War.  http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm

Daughters of the American Revolution 
Don’t think this site is just about military history: It’s now home to the DAR Genealogical Research System—several interlinked databases of DAR members, their patriot ancestors, and those Revolutionary War figures’ more than 7 million descendants. Plus you can search more than 20 million names listed in volumes in the DAR’s library catalog.http://services.dar.org/public/dar_research/search/

Library of Congress 
The Chronicling America newspaper collection makes this an even more important bookmark for delving into the nation’s past—now exceeding 3.3 million digitized pages from nearly 450 titles. And the site’s National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC, pronounded “nuck-muck”) and the American Memory digital collection contain mountains of historical maps, photos, documents, audio and video.  http://www.loc.gov/index.html

National Archives and Records Administration 
NARA’s online archive puts online ordering of veterans’ records a click away from the home page. Under Research our Records, you’ll still find the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) index to 6.3 million records (which links to 153,000 digital copies) and the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) collection of more than 85 million historical electronic records. The new Online Public Access system searches both the ARC and AAD and more all at once. http://www.archives.gov/

Western States Historical Marriage Records Index 
Covering 12 states, this website hosted by Brigham Young University Idaho indexes nearly 700,000 early marriages, extending into the 1930s or later for Arizona, Idaho and Nevada. An alternative Enhanced Index Search returns results ready to copy right into Personal Ancestral File software.http://abish.byui.edu/specialcollections/westernstates/search.cfm

Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates 
Hunt for Arizona ancestors with the help of this stellar vital-records site, where you can search for birth records (1855 to 1934) and death records (1844 to 1959). One click yields a PDF of the original document. http://genealogy.az.gov/

Arkansas History Commission 
Click on the Catalog of Arkansas Resources and Archival Treasures (CARAT) to explore databases of land records, Confederate pension and home records, 1911 Confederate Veterans Reunion registration forms and questionnaires, and WWI discharge records. You also can search Biodex, which includes newspaper obituaries and manuscript collections. http://www.ark-ives.com/

Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection 
Page through Colorado’s past in this collection from the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Historical Society—more than 500,000 pages from 163 newspapers published in the state from 1859 to 1923. The whole collection can be searched at once, or you can select individual titles and search only articles, pictures or ads.

Digital Library of Georgia 
Search a million digital objects in more than 200 collections at 60 institutions and 100 government agencies. Georgia goodies here include Colonial wills, manuscripts, Confederate records, the New Georgia Encyclopedia and a growing newspaper collection, which recently added 14 Atlanta-area titles spanning 1827 to 1922. http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu

Florida Memory Project 
New online exhibits about Spanish architecture and early Florida medical care add to this state archives site that already boasted more than 163,000 digitized photographs, rare documents, Spanish land grant records, Confederate pension applications, WWI service cards, WPA stories, a folklife collection, an interactive timeline and more. http://www.floridamemory.com/

Cook County, Illinois, Clerk of the Circuit Court 
Check this trove of 500,000 naturalization records from 1871 to 1929 even if your kin didn’t settle in Chicago, as many other Illinois immigrants filed their “first papers” (or more formally, declarations of intent) here. The naturalization database is searchable by name or partial name, birth date, birthplace and even occupation. http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/nr/

Cook County, Illinois, Vital Records $ 
It’s free to search this collection of more than 8 million birth (75-plus years old), marriage (50-plus years old) and death (20-plus years old) records; downloading an actual record costs $15.http://www.cookcountygenealogy.com/

Indiana State Digital Archives 
Civil War and Indiana National Guard records are the latest additions to this growing Hoosier website. It’s now home to more than 2.7 million searchable records.http://www.indianadigitalarchives.org/

Kentucky Historical Society 
The Civil War in Kentucky is spotlighted, but you’ll also find a database of hundreds of thousands of names transcribed from cemeteries across Kentucky, plus documents, images and oral accounts tracing the Bluegrass State’s story right through the Civil Rights era. http://history.ky.gov/

Maine Memory Network 
An RSS feed keeps you up to date with the latest additions to this project of the Maine Historical Society, which provides access to thousands of historical items belonging to more than 200 organizations across the state. http://www.mainememory.net/

Massachusetts Archives 
Even if you don’t have Massachusetts kin, the databases here are worth checking for ancestors who may have arrived through the port of Boston. An ongoing indexing project, updated monthly, aims to cover 1 million immigrants, 1848 to 1891. Other databases cover Massachusetts birth, marriage and death records from 1841 to 1915 and 18 volumes of Massachusetts Archives.http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcidx.htm

Minnesota Historical Society 
The Land of 10,000 Lakes also boasts plenty of useful online records and indexes, including indexes to birth and death records, state census records, building and house histories, and a guide to place names. http://www.mnhs.org/genealogy/

Missouri Digital Heritage 
The Missouri State Archives and the Missouri State Library, in partnership with the State Historical Society of Missouri, have gotten together to enable one-stop shopping for Show Me State resources. Special collections, photographs and old newspapers now add to the wealth of databases including military records, naturalization documents, land patents and birth and death records, many linked to images. http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/

Nevada Census Database 
Click on the Nevada Census Database link on the right side of this State Historic Preservation Office website, and you can search 310,000 entries in Nevada federal census records, 1860 to 1880 and 1900 to 1920. http://nvshpo.org/

New York State Archives 
Another site strong on Civil War data, with a database of more than 360,000 New York soldiers, this site also shines for its Probate Records Pathfinder.http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_topics_genealogy.shtml

Ohio Memory 
Recently upgraded to a new site, this online home for all things Ohio history added 50,000 images in the process. A powerful search tool lets you scour the entire collection—including Graves Registration Cards, oral histories, deeds and military records—with just one click.http://ohiomemory.org

Oklahoma Historical Society 
An online Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture.  Also, an index to obituaries, the 1890 territorial census and 1901 land lottery participants (partial), plus resources for researching American Indian ancestors. http://www.okhistory.org/

Online Archive of California 
Nearly 20,000 online collection guides and more than 170,000 digital images and documents: Search, browse by title or zoom in to one of the more than 150 contributing institutions statewide.http://www.oac.cdlib.org/

Seeking Michigan 
A searchable database of nearly 1 million Michigan death certificates (1897 to 1920), Civil War photographs and records, WPA property descriptions, oral histories, maps and more.http://seekingmichigan.org/

Texas State Historical Association 
The Handbook of Texas Online,  plus 57,000 online pages of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and the Texas Almanac: a searchable database of Texas towns, including those now home only to ghosts. http://www.tshaonline.org/

Utah Death Certificate Index 
Once you’ve found a deceased Utah ancestor in this searchable database of more than 250,000 death certificates, 1904 to 1958, a simple click will take you to an image of the original.http://archives.utah.gov/research/indexes/20842.htm

Virginia Memory 
The Library of Virginia makes it easy to access its impressive digital collections, either by topic (military records, newspapers) or A to Z. Either way, you’ll uncover a wealth of court records, Revolutionary War land bounties, Civil War pension rolls and disability applications, WWI veterans questionnaires and much more. http://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/

Washington State Digital Archives 
Search by names, keywords or any combination of record series, county or title to tap into the nearly 30 million searchable records. The total count of digitized records accessible here is about to top 100 million, including vital records, censuses, land records, military records and naturalization documents. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/

Wisconsin Historical Society 
Records of 1 million births, 400,000 deaths and 1 million marriages, more than 150,000 Wisconsin obituaries and biographical sketches, Civil War records, old photos and history articles.http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/

Historical Newspapers in Washington 
Sophisticated search of a project to digitize old newspapers that were previously accessible only on 40,000-plus microfilm reels. http://www.sos.wa.gov/history/newspapers.aspx

Access Genealogy 
A wealth of American Indian records; recent additions include school records, Indians in the 1890 US census, and the 1839 Drennen Rolls—the first enumeration of Indians after the Trail of Tears. But its 250,000-plus pages are also worth a look even if you have no tribal connections, for records ranging from wills to town histories to military databases. http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

AfriQuest 
This home for user-submitted records in African-American genealogy hosts documents ranging from deeds to book excerpts to old ads about runaway slaves. http://www.afriquest.com/

Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1719-1820 
A searchable database of 100,000 Louisiana slaves, the product of 15 years of research by Rutgers University history professor Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/

Avotaynu 
This leading publisher of Jewish genealogy research offers a digital newsletter for $12 per year. Free content on the site includes the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index of 699,084 surnames in 42 different databases containing more than 7.3 million records. http://www.avotaynu.com/

Digital Library on American Slavery 
Search thousands of slavery-related county court and legislative petitions, wills, estate inventories and civil suits, filed in 15 states and Washington, DC, from 1775 to 1867. The documents mention 80,000 slaves and 8,000 free people of color, plus 62,00 white owners and non-owners of slaves.http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/

JewishGen 
This site affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage recently added the 1.5- million-entry Yizkor Book Master Name Index. Its Family Tree of the Jewish People now boasts data on nearly 5 million people. Don’t overlook the Family Finder database of 450,000 surnames and towns, ShtetLinks for 200-plus communities, and the Online Worldwide Burial Registry.http://www.jewishgen.org/

OK/IT Genweb 
Researchers with American Indian roots should seek out this US Genweb site. Rather than covering a single state, it focuses on the “twin territories” of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. It has help using the 1900 Oklahoma census, 1903 postal routes, migration and removal information, timelines, trails and roads. http://www.okgenweb.org/~itgenweb/

Bureau of Land Management General Land Office Records 
More than five million federal land title records issued since 1820, plus survey plats and field notes dating to 1810. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online 
Searchable database of more than 1.1 million locales, including historical places (with dates) and alternate spellings. http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn

Google Earth 
The downloadable Google Earth version 6.0 lets you zoom around the world on your computer or mobile device in 3D, and now includes historical imagery. Or check out the street views—the next best thing to visiting your ancestral places in person. http://www.google.com/earth/

Newberry Library Atlas of Historical County Boundaries 
Never again be stumped by the shifting county lines in your ancestors’ state of origin. This free interactive atlas serves up maps where you can pan and zoom, add or subtract modern boundaries; you can also download the maps as “shapefiles” for use with geographic information system (GIS) software. http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/

US Geological Survey 
Find your ancestral stomping grounds, no matter how obscure, in the National Atlas or the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), then plot them on the National Map and create your own customized maps. http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod/

Ages-Online $ ($39.95 per yea)r
This online family tree site gives you complete control over your shared tree, including user-specific permissions and time stamps that track who changed what when. http://www.ages-online.com/

AncientFaces 
Originally focused on family photos (more than 53,000 at last count), this sharing site has broadened to include family stories, favorite recipes and Family Spaces web pages.http://www.ancientfaces.com/

Backupmytree.com  
This free online backup service just for genealogy automatically finds and uploads files on your PC and even keeps previous versions in case you accidentally delete an individual. The site works with most Windows programs, including Family Tree Maker, Personal Ancestral File, RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Family Tree Legends, Family Tree Builder and GenoPro.https://www.backupmytree.com/

DeadFred  
Orphaned pictures in need of reuniting with their families. To date, DeadFred has helped more than 1,800 people find ancestral photos among its 103,000 items, which represent more than 17,400 surnames. With a $19.95 premium membership, you get enhanced photo posting and customization options. http://deadfred.com/

Facebook 
With more than 900 million active users, Facebook may be the ultimate cousin finding & research sharing site. http://www.facebook.com

Flickr 
What Facebook is to social networking, Flickr is to photos. If both the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian use it, maybe this is the place to share your ancestral photos and gravestone images.http://www.flickr.com/

Geni 
Now topping 100 million profiles, this site is billed as “the world’s largest free family tree.” PC Magazine has honored Geni in its Best Free Software roundup three straight years.http://www.geni.com/

My Heritage 
Not only hosts your family tree, but constantly scours its 17 million trees for people who might match your ancestors. Basic trees are free, but you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan if your tree grows too large. http://www.myheritage.com/

Shared Tree 
Offering unlimited online family trees, this site boasts family forums, charting and a way to debate family facts with distant kin. http://www.sharedtree.com/

Tribal Pages 
Upload your GEDCOM file and add your ancestors to the 80 million names on this free site. Don’t forget the photos—some 2 million already posted and counting. http://www.tribalpages.com/

WeRelate 
Designed to share data as well as family trees, this wiki-style project from the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy and the Allen County Public Library combines data with social networking. It’s home to pages for 2 million people and families, while also offering a search of nearly 1 million sources. http://www.werelate.org

WikiTree 
Another wiki, launched in 2008, this tree-sharing site has over 1 million profiles. Designed to be user-friendly, it lets you share pages, keep them private or make them public. And WikiTree’s new embeddable family tree widget displays a family tree or pedigree chart into a blog post or web page.http://www.wikitree.com/

 

Ancestry Insider 
The unofficial, unauthorized view of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The Ancestry Insider reports on, defends, and constructively criticizes these two websites and associated topics. The author attempts to fairly and evenly support both. A must read to help you keep up with changes and new databases at these two mega-sites. http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/

Diigo 
Free web-based tool perfect for sharing and comparing genealogy finds. http://www.diigo.com/

Evernote 
Another slick way to save your online family history finds, Evernote lets you add snapshots and even voice notes.  http://evernote.com/

FamilyChArtist 
Upload your genealogy data, download from FamilySearch or enter manually, then download a free 8x11 JPEG chart in a customizable layout. Once you’re hooked, you can pay to order fancy printed charts or PDFs. http://www.generationmaps.com/familychartist/

Google Book Search and News Archive Search The 7 million books—some with full text—you can scour using Google Book Search include many genealogy and history tomes. And don’t forget about the news archive search page, which leads you not only to a wealth of historical newspaper content but will also organize your hits into a timeline. http://books.google.com/

Internet Archive 
Old web pages live on in the Wayback Machine, which has 150 billion pages rescued from the internet’s past, along with nearly 2.7 million documents including family and local histories.http://archive.org/

Live Roots 
This next-generation genealogy meta-search presents your finds from FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, Footnote and Flickr on one page and also delves into catalogs of lesser-known data providers, 233,432 in all. http://www.liveroots.com/

Mocavo 
Mocavo is a web search engine that speedily crawls hundreds of thousands of genealogy sites—especially great if you’re researching a surname that’s also a common word or corporate name.

One-Step Web Pages 
Don’t be fooled by the plain looking page. Steve Morse excels in the underlying tech of the web—building better ways to search the Ellis Island and Castle Garden websites, other immigration databases and online census collections. http://stevemorse.org/

WorldCat 
All the world’s knowledge isn’t online—yet—but WorldCat will tell you where books and other paper records are in 10,000 of the world’s libraries. You can now search its 1.5 billion items or log in with a free account to create lists, bibliographies and reviews of library materials.http://www.worldcat.org/

 

American Battle Monuments Commission 
Search 24 overseas military cemeteries and commemorative Tablets of the Missing totaling more than 214,000 American servicemen and women. http://www.abmc.gov

Family Tree DNA 
Family Tree DNA is a leader in paid testing services, and its website lets users match their DNA against 327,000 records and 6,300 surname projects. http://www.familytreedna.com/

Find a Grave 
Ever-growing, easy-to-search gravestone database. You can search 59 million grave records, many with headstone photos and transcribed obituaries. http://www.findagrave.com/

Interment.net 
A useful supplement to the larger Find a Grave, this cemetery site adds international coverage and data on cemeteries that no longer exist, veterans’ cemeteries, California mission graveyards and Woodmen of the World burials. http://www.interment.net/

Nationwide Gravesite Locator 
This stateside counterpart to the American Battle Monuments Commission searches burials of veterans and their families in VA National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, and various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries. It also finds veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave bears a government marker. http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/

 

 

Castle Garden 
This searchable database has 11 million records of arrivals through Castle Garden, America’s first official immigration center from 1820 through 1892. If your ancestors arrived before Ellis Island, this should be your first stop in tracing them. http://www.castlegarden.org/

Danish Demographic Database 
Search nearly 13 million census records and 400,000 emigration records, 1868 to 1908.http://ddd.dda.dk/ddd_en.htm

Ellis Island 
Searchable database of 25 million records of passenger arrivals through the port of New York (1892 to 1924). http://www.ellisisland.org/

Federation of East European Family History Societies  
Clickable map of resources and an extensive digital library. http://feefhs.org/links.html

Genlias 
Fifteen million records covering about 61 million people, primarily from post-1811 civil registers—a key source for tracing roots in the Netherlands. Earlier parish records are being added to the roster, along with inheritance declarations dating from 1808. http://www.genlias.nl/en/page0.jsp

PolishRoots 
Covers all the areas historically part of the Polish Commonwealth, with a getting-started guide, maps, links and archives. http://www.polishroots.org/