Assess Internet Websites to More Successfully Research Your Ancestors
HOW TO…
Categorize the major types of genealogical resources on the Internet
Structure effective searches to locate information
Use another way to fine-tune your Google searches
Use online message boards to share information and collaborate with others
Subscribe to and use genealogy mailing lists
Write effective messages and postings that get results
Locate and use additional Internet resources to help your research
Genealogy is one of the top uses of the Internet, and the exponential growth of web-based genealogical source materials on the Internet has attracted tens of millions of people around the world to become involved in investigating their family history. There are many thousands of online indexes, millions of transcribed records, billions of digitized images of original documents, vast collections of scanned and indexed books, millions of uploaded personal family trees, hundreds of millions of pages of digitized newspapers, and so much more on the Internet, and the volume of these materials grows each year. Collaboration between genealogists has become intensified, including volunteers working on projects to scan and/or index records by the millions.
It should be no surprise that many people are confused by all the options available and overwhelmed by the huge volume of information that they find. Making sense of what you find on the Internet means understanding what you are looking at. Understanding the different types of Internet resources is not unlike visiting your local public library and recognizing that dictionaries are vastly different from fiction and nonfiction books, magazines are different from journals, and microfilm is different from the Internet. You use your critical thinking skills every day as you encounter different kinds of materials. When you read a printed or online newspaper, you differentiate throughout between stories concerning politics, a house fire in the area, school activities, entertainment and sports events, between obituaries and stock market reports, and between news items and advertisements, both classified and commercial. Your personal knowledge and experience related to each of these informational items provides you with a unique perspective. You assess the information presented to you and interpret the details as you formulate an opinion. Each time you visit a library or archive to locate documentary evidence, it is essential to differentiate between the types of materials you want to use. You have to recognize what is current versus noncurrent information, and discern between quality, authoritative, and unbiased information and that which is not.
We talked earlier in the book about original source materials versus derivative materials such as indexes, transcripts, extracts, abstracts, and web pages created by individuals. We also mentioned that family trees submitted to online sites should be subjected to intense scrutiny. Information posted with source citations provides you the opportunity to retrace someone else’s research and personally examine the materials they used to develop their hypotheses; information without citations is always suspect, and you must use the clues you find to completely re-create the research for yourself.
The array of information available on the Internet today presents us with both challenges and opportunities. This chapter focuses on the different types of Internet resources, how to evaluate them, and how to incorporate them with the “traditional” documents, print materials, and other non-electronic resources that you use. Ultimately, you will work all of these sources in tandem to obtain more comprehensive results and to make yourself a more effective researcher.
The emergence of social media such as Facebook, Genealogy Wise, Google+, Twitter, and similar resources in the past few years has added even more tools for genealogists to collaborate with one another. These will be discussed in Chapter 15.
Categorize the Major Types of Internet Resources
Many people equate “the Internet” only with web pages. It is, however, much more than that. Certainly there are tens of billions of web pages, but the Internet really is a collection of copious numbers of tools. These can be grouped into three main categories as they relate to genealogical research:
• Web pages
• Electronic mail (email)
• Message boards and mailing lists
Within web pages are other subsidiary contents, including text, graphics files, sound files, video files, forms for inputting data, search templates, archives of files that can be transferred or downloaded, chat rooms, and a number of other resources.
Email is the most widely used form of communication on earth today. Many billions of electronic messages are sent and received each day. Some are individual person-to-person messages while others are one-to-many messages, such as those sent to an email mailing list or a distribution list. Email has, like web pages, become more than just a way to disseminate textual material. Messages can contain multimedia graphics, sound, and video files within the body of the message, and attachments in many forms can be shared.
Message boards and mailing lists are Internet tools that allow you to reach many persons at once who share an interest in a particular topic. Electronic genealogy message boards have been in use for decades, and they are still used by many thousands of persons each day to post queries concerning persons with a specific surname, post questions about a geographical area, or engage in discussions concerning some other subject area. A mailing list uses email messages to communicate to persons who have subscribed to that particular list whose messages are focused on a specific surname, geographical area, or topic. Message boards and mailing lists are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.
Web pages, email, message boards, and mailing lists are different media that are used for different purposes. If you understand their formats and uses up front, you are better prepared for what you may and may not expect to find when you use them.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to look for “help” resources on the websites you use in your research. Most websites and Internet resources include a “Help” facility. This may also be titled “Tips and Tricks” or some other name. You may also discover a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that provides more information to assist your use of the site. You can always become more conversant and effective in the use of any online facility by accessing and reading the Help text provided. This area will explain what is and is not available in the way of functionality. Often you will find examples of how to access content effectively and, if there is a search facility available, how to optimize your use of it. These “mini-tutorials” are intended as primers for you and usually are not long, drawn-out, dry narratives.
Some websites include online forums for users (or members), which allow the discussion of almost any pertinent topic. These may be “discussion message boards” where a question or comment is posed, and people respond on that specific topic. That focused discussion is typically referred to as a “thread.”
Categorize the Major Types of Genealogical Web Page Resources
No matter whether you’re just starting your genealogical adventure on the Internet or you’re a seasoned web researcher, there is always something new to be discovered there. I’ve been involved with researching my family’s history since 1962, and I literally find something new every single day. You must remember that Internet websites change over time. New content is added, content is updated, materials are rearranged, dead links and outdated materials are removed (hopefully!), and websites evolve to become easier to use. Let’s explore the major types of websites you will encounter and assess what you can expect to find there.
Compilation Sites
Compilation sites are those websites that gather significant resources together in an organized fashion. The materials are presented in a format that allows you to locate materials by reviewing the logical groupings of materials or hierarchical structures to find what you want. Some of these sites may include a search function that allows you to locate specific resources by keyword or phrase. Following are some examples of compilation websites and suggested areas to explore at each.
Ancestry.com at http://www.ancestry.com We have discussed Ancestry.com and its various international sites throughout the book. It is the world’s largest commercial subscription-based genealogy website. However, it also offers a great deal of content that is free. Set up your free login ID and password, and take advantage of some of the great resources. First, the Family Tree facility allows you to upload and share your own family tree with others, and this can be a first start to attract attention by other researchers and begin collaborative efforts. Next, the message boards, which we will discuss later, provide you the opportunity of posting queries for other researchers’ responses and to share information with others. Finally, the Learning Center provides a compilation of free resources that you can use for your self-education. Visit Ancestry.com’s main page and hover your mouse over the Learning Center link in the menu bar at the top of the page. A drop-down menu lists a number of resources. These include
• What’s New This area contains information about new content at the site and new features of the service that can help you get the most out of your use of Ancestry.com. You’ll also find links to their Social Network, to the Ask Ancestry Anne column, and to their Livestream Videos, where you can watch live presentations and previously recorded ones to learn tips from Ancestry.com professional historians.
• First Steps Learn the basics about genealogy and about using Ancestry.com in this area. You can find instructional articles, a collection of charts and forms in PDF format, and interesting articles about record types and research methodology.
• Next Steps Here you will find resources that explain how to get the most from the record collections at Ancestry.com, including census records, immigration and naturalization records, military records, and more.
• Webinars: Online Seminars Webinars are online seminars conducted online that include both audio and video content. Ancestry.com has produced many of these educational broadcasts. Here you will find the archive of all past webinars.
• Help – FAQ Here you will find resources to answer your questions about using Ancestry.com, its products, and its services.
• Family History Wiki Ancestry.com’s wiki includes thousands of articles about genealogy topics that have been written by Ancestry.com’s staff and independent writers, and contributed to by other members of the genealogical community. We will discuss wikis later in this chapter. In addition, the company has placed the content of two seminal reference books online in this area. The first is The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, which describes in exceptional detail all of the major record types available in the United States and how to use them. The second is the Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources, which describes the history of each state, the record types generated there, and details about research in the state. Of particular interest are the state-by-state tables of the counties with contact information, date of formation, and the oldest date of several record types in the county courthouses.
Canadian Genealogy & History Links at http://www.islandnet.com/~cghl Visit the main page and click, for example, the Newfoundland link, and then scroll through the categorized links to locate more information about the area and its records.
Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com Cyndi Ingle’s site has been around for more than 18 years and has over 332,000 categorized website links related to genealogy at this writing. Information is indexed by subject/topic and is searchable by keyword.
GENUKI at http://www.genuki.org.uk Visit the main page (shown in Figure 12-1) and click the link labeled UK and Ireland. Enter this large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. Scroll down to the next page and visit the links in the section “Church History,” for example, to see the extensive collection of information there.
FIGURE 12-1 GENUKI is an extensive compilation of UK and Ireland genealogical resources.
JewishGen at http://www.jewishgen.org Visit the main page (shown in Figure 12-2), hover over the button labeled Get Started, and click the link in the drop-down list labeled InfoFiles. Scroll down the page to view the many links to learn about Jewish genealogical research around the world.
FIGURE 12-2 The JewishGen site provides the most comprehensive set of links to Jewish genealogical resources on the Internet.
Linkpendium at http://www.linkpendium.com Linkpendium is a vast online directory of genealogical resources that was created by Karen Isaacson and Brian (Wolf) Leverich, the creators of RootsWeb. The site has been extensively updated and expanded in 2014. There are links for localities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland, and for surnames around the world. This is just the beginning.
Origins.net at http://www.origins.net Origins.net is a British-based, fee-based database website. It includes component areas for British Origins, Scots Origins, and Irish Origins with many unique databases.
RootsWeb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com RootsWeb is one of the oldest genealogical resources on the Internet (see Figure 12-3). Although owned by Ancestry.com, RootsWeb is entirely free. It is filled with instructional articles, search templates, databases, family trees, and websites hosted at RootsWeb. RootsWeb is host to more than 32,500 genealogy mailing lists. It also has more than 198,000 message boards with more than 25 million posts. Both of these facilities are the largest in the world and are a boon to genealogists connecting and collaborating with other researchers.
FIGURE 12-3 The main screen at RootsWeb
USGenWeb Project at www.usgenweb.org The USGenWeb Project is an all-volunteer effort that provides access to information about all 50 states and their counties. Visit the site, whose main page is shown in Figure 12-4, and view the list of states on the left side of the page. You might click on Oklahoma, for example, and then explore what is there. A list of county links is shown on the left side of the page, and links to specific Oklahoma GenWeb (OKGenWeb) Projects are listed on the right side of the page.
FIGURE 12-4 Main page of the USGenWeb Project site
WorldGenWeb Project at http://www.worldgenweb.org This site is the international counterpart to the USGenWeb Project. Visit this site and click the link for CenEuroGenWeb, located on the left side of the page. On the next page, click the link for Germany or the subsidiary list of German states and visit the page for the resources listed there.
As you can see, each of these websites is a compilation of many different types of information. Within some of these are “how-to” materials, databases, maps, dictionaries, and links to other sites. While Cyndi’s List offers an exceptionally comprehensive collection of reference links spanning many subject areas across the Internet, a compilation by topic area provides an excellent focal point for your research concerning a specific topic area. The esteemed JewishGen site, for example, provides categories of general and geography-specific information and links, making it the preeminent website for Jewish ancestral research guidance.
“How-to,” Educational, and Reference Sites
This category includes “how-to” articles that provide instruction, as well as articles, columns, tips, and other online reference materials. The following are representative examples of this category.
Genealogy at About.com at http://genealogy.about.com Kimberly Powell regularly writes about all things genealogical for About.com. She is a well-respected genealogist and writer in the genealogy community, and each of the subjects that she covers will add to your knowledge about record types and research methodologies.
AfriGeneas (African Ancestored Genealogy from Africa to the Americas) at http://www.afrigeneas.com Visit the main screen and click Records at the top of the page for a drop-down menu. Click Library Records. Select one of the items on the page to investigate.
RootsWeb Guide to Tracing Family Trees at http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com Visit this web page and select one or more subjects that are of interest to you in your research. You might want to try the Land Records (U.S.A.) link for interesting information.
In addition to these and similar websites, you will find instructional information on some of the compilation sites mentioned previously and in wikis that we will discuss later in this chapter.
Genealogy Charts and Forms
In the course of your research, you will probably find various types of forms to be useful in recording information you uncover. In particular, census transcription forms and forms for abstracting wills, deeds, and other documents can be great tools. You certainly can create forms for your own work style, but there also are free forms available at a number of sites.
About.com at http://genealogy.about.com/od/free_charts Kimberly Powell, author of genealogical articles at About.com, has made several genealogy charts available for free download.
Ancestry.com at http://www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/ancchart.aspx Some of the best charts and forms are available at the Ancestry.com site. These include census forms for the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, and other forms. These are in Adobe PDF file format and are downloadable here.
Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com/free-stuff/printable-charts-and-forms/?page=2 Cyndi’s List contains a large list of sources for free charts and forms.
Family Tree Magazine online at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/freeforms Family Tree Magazine has perhaps the most complete collection of free genealogy forms on the Internet, available in PDF and/or plain text formats. The list includes pedigree charts, family group sheets, worksheets for all the U.S. federal censuses, immigration passenger lists, deed indexes, military records, and more.
National Archives and Records Administration at http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/charts-forms NARA has a comprehensive collection of genealogy forms, including an Ancestral Chart, a Family Group Sheet, U.S. Federal Census Forms (1790–1940), Non-Population Census Forms, Supplemental Forms for the 1880 Defective, Delinquent, and Dependent Classes, Immigration Forms, and Military Forms for the draft registrations of World War I and World War II, all in PDF format.
These are just a few of the many places on the Internet where you can obtain free forms to download and/or print. Additional free forms can be found by entering genealogy forms in your favorite search engine.
Online Databases
The explosive growth of the Internet in the past 30 years has taken already popular genealogical research to new heights. Individuals have created their own websites to display their genealogical data and/or have uploaded the contents of their databases to genealogy service providers’ sites. The area of largest Internet growth for genealogists, however, has been in the number of online databases. These databases include indexes to original source records, digitized images of original documents, and other content. There are both free databases and fee-based databases. Various payment options are available to access data at the fee-based sites. The options include access on an annual or monthly subscription basis, pay-per-day, pay-as-you-go, or pay-per-record downloaded or printed. A number of the database sites will give you a free demonstration or sample subscription. It is wise to first use the site only on a trial basis before committing yourself to a lengthy and possibly expensive subscription.
In this category of web resources, you should consider exploring as far as you possibly can, and returning often to these sites for new and updated materials. Some of the best of the databases are listed here.
Ancestry.com at http://www.ancestry.com Ancestry.com is a company that offers a subscription site that has placed literally tens of thousands of indexed and searchable databases online. Some of the databases are free to access, but most are available only on a subscription basis. Ancestry.com’s collections are truly international in scope and are simple to search. A search will yield a full list, such as that shown in Figure 12-5 of every database at Ancestry.com that contains that name. Among their premier subscription databases are the U.S. Federal Census Collection, the UK Census Collection, U.S. Immigration Passenger Lists, World War I Draft Registration Cards, and the impressive Historical Newspaper Collection containing hundreds of indexed, searchable newspapers dating from the 1700s to 2000 from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Ancestry.com’s Ancestry Library Edition database offering is marketed to libraries as an institutional subscription, and can often be found as part of public and academic libraries’ subscription database collections. That edition does not provide access to all the databases available at Ancestry.com because of licensing arrangements made by the company with some of their database providers. (Other Ancestry subscription sites include, at this writing, Canada [in French and English], the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Sweden.)
FIGURE 12-5 Search results list at Ancestry.com
FamilySearch (free databases) at https://familysearch.org The FamilySearch website is a fast-growing resource for your genealogical reference. FamilySearch is working to digitize, index, and make available on this site nearly all of the microfilmed records they have captured over the decades. Visit the Search Records page. Here you can search across all of the databases, click a geographical area in the map on this page, browse through all the available databases, or search for a collection by name. Click a specific database to search it. Many databases already have digitized images; some of these may already have been indexed, while others have not yet been indexed. If a database of images has not yet been indexed, you will only be able to browse through the images.
Click the link labeled Catalog at the top of the screen to find details of everything available through the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah. When you search and locate items in the catalog, you will find detailed information about each item is provided. If a book or set of records is available in a microfilmed format, a film number is included in the catalog record. You can present these film numbers at your nearest LDS Family History Center (FHC), and the staff can work with you to arrange to order the rental microform materials from the FHL in Salt Lake City.
findmypast at http://www.findmypast.com A DC Thomson Family History company, findmypast has been a well-known genealogy subscription database service in the United Kingdom for a number of years. It entered the U.S. market over two years ago and has added vast collections of records. Their database collections include, at this writing, more than 1.6 billion international genealogical records, including British, Irish, Australian, and U.S. materials. Figure 12-6 shows a search template for Birth, Marriage, and Death (Parish Registers) records at findmypast.com. They offer two especially important collections:
• The British Newspaper Collection includes thousands of local and regional publications from England, Wales, and Scotland, dating from 1710 to 1953, and later.
• The Periodical Source Index (PERSI) is the searchable index to genealogical and historical magazines, periodicals, and ethnic publications, with more than 205 million fully searchable entries.
FIGURE 12-6 Search template for Birth, Marriage, and Death (Parish Registers) records at findmypast
Fold3 (subscription databases) at http://www.fold3.com Fold3, which belongs to Ancestry.com, offers a subscription site that provides access to millions of digitized U.S. document images, specializing in military service and pension records, widows’ pension records, naturalization records, city directories, photographs, and much more. It is adding approximately more than a million new images to its website each month. Many of these images come from microfilmed records at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the company also digitizes on-site at NARA. Their content includes U.S. Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War documents for service, pensions, and more. Naturalization index cards, city directories, and many other document types are also available. Figure 12-7 shows one page from a search result for the author’s ancestor, John Swords. The Revolutionary War Pension database includes the complete file of 45 pages of digitized original pension documents for him.
FIGURE 12-7 Revolutionary War Pension file for John Swords at Fold3.com
JewishGen (free databases) at http://www.jewishgen.org As mentioned earlier in this chapter, this site contains excellent databases, which are available with a simple registration.
Library and Archives Canada (free databases) at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca LAC was discussed in some detail in Chapter 6 concerning census records. LAC has, in its online Genealogy and Family History area, a variety of articles and links and a good number of digitized image databases.
MyHeritage at http://www.myheritage.com MyHeritage is one of the fastest-growing genealogical database sites on the Internet. The company boasts 5 billion records, 27 million family trees, and 200 million photographs, and the site supports 40 different languages. Records include census records, vital/civil registration records, immigration and travel records, naturalization materials, military records, cemetery and obituary records, government documents, public records, court records, books, and more from around the world. You can start working on the site for free, and later upgrade to a premium subscription. They offer a smartphone app for use on the go. The main page in shown in Figure 12-8.
FIGURE 12-8 The main page at MyHeritage
The National Archives (UK) at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk The National Archives (TNA) is the primary repository for records of England and Wales and contains over 11 million publicly available documents, some dating back more than 1,000 years. The former Public Record Office (PRO) and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) were merged in April 2003 to form TNA, and the staff and remaining services of the Family Records Centre (FRC) were relocated to TNA in 2008. The TNA website is a wonderful compendium of information, online exhibits, educational tutorials, and much more. TNA’s main web page is shown in Figure 12-9 with its Menu displayed. Of special interest to family history researchers are the many digitized census images from TNA’s collection—currently approximately 5 percent of their holdings. A new online catalog, Discovery, was implemented in 2014 and encompasses the holdings of archives around the country.
FIGURE 12-9 Main page of website of The National Archives (UK), with drop-down menu shown
Origins.net at http://www.origins.net A DC Thomson Family History company, Origins.net provides genealogical databases about Britain and Ireland, including British Origins (http://www.britishorigins.com), Irish Origins (http://www.irishorigins.com), and Scots Origins (http://www.scotsorigins.com).
WorldVitalRecords at http://www.worldvitalrecords.com WorldVitalRecords, a MyHeritage company, is a subscription website that includes many record collections from around the world. National, state, and provincial censuses are represented, as are birth, marriage, and death records, parish records, military records, and a large newspaper collection.
Some governmental agencies have also provided online databases of materials in their possession, although concerns for individuals’ privacy and identity theft may have spurred legislators to pass legislation to either prevent making many records accessible to the public, limit access to them, or withdraw them altogether from public access.
Genealogical Societies
Genealogical societies can offer a wealth of information to you, including reference and referrals, education, companionship, and publications, and may well possess important genealogical records found nowhere else. You will want to investigate the societies at the national, regional, state or provincial, county, parish, and local levels where your ancestors and family members lived. The following are some of the major ones of interest to researchers.
Canadian Genealogical Societies at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/022/022-801-e.html This web page is a subsidiary of the Library and Archives Canada website and provides a list of links to the provincial genealogical societies’ websites. There are, however, hundreds of genealogical societies in Canada, and you may locate information for and links to a more extensive list of local societies at the provincial societies’ sites.
Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) at http://www.ffhs.org.uk This international organization, based in the United Kingdom, has more than 180 member societies representing more than 180,000 members worldwide. It provides education and support to individuals and to genealogical societies, and coordinates a number of national projects in order to integrate the efforts of multiple societies, publish the efforts, and publicize the results.
Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) at http://www.fgs.org This international organization consists primarily of U.S. and Canadian genealogical societies but also includes some overseas members. Individual societies join FGS and it, in turn, provides a forum for society education and communications, and hosts an annual conference. Visit the Society Hall area of the site at http://www.fgs.org/cstm_societyHall.php to locate member societies and their contact information.
You can also search for a particular genealogical society by using your favorite search engine and typing the name of the area and the quotation mark–enclosed phrase “genealogical society” or “genealogy society” in the search box. You can further narrow your search by adding the name of a location, such as “new york” “genealogical society” or Canada “genealogical society”.
Structure Effective Searches to Locate Information
The Web is an enormous place, currently consisting of tens of billions of individual pages. In reality, we can only guess at its actual size, but it continues to grow at a rapid pace. Because it is relatively easy for anyone to put information on the Web, there is a good possibility that somebody, somewhere, has created a web page that contains information you might find useful for your genealogical research. The trick, then, is to locate that one useful page among the billions of pages out there.
It is important that you learn how to use, in a logical, structured way, the two primary search tools on the Internet: search engines and directories. We’re going to explore each one in detail, after which you should practice, practice, and practice in order to become an expert Internet searcher.
Define the Difference Between Search Engines and Directories
Early in the development of the World Wide Web, directories were the way of the world. Individuals created structured, categorized links to websites.
A search engine is a tool that accesses an index of web pages that has been created by a mechanical software contrivance known as a spider, a robot, or simply a “bot.” The key here is that the index is mechanically created, with very little human intervention. There are three indexed components in a web page that a search engine index indexes: the title, the metatags, and the body text of the web page.
When you enter a single word for a search, it might be located anywhere within these areas of the web pages. As you’ll see later, the Advanced Search facility of many search engines may allow you to specify where in the web page the word or phrase is to be sought.
Search engines employ the use of structured searches, using words, keywords, and phrases to match entries in their indexes. Search engines typically offer both a simple and an advanced Search facility, the second of which allows you to select criteria to narrow your search results.
The leading search engines today are Google (located at http://www.google.com, http://www.google.co.uk, and other addresses in many other countries) and Microsoft’s Bing (http://www.bing.com).
A genealogy-specific search engine called Mocavo (http://www.mocavo.com) made its debut in 2011 and claims to search billions of free genealogy records. You will note that a link to the Advanced Search facility of Mocavo is available to registered members.
A directory is another Internet tool that, unlike the search engine, is created entirely by human editors who look at web pages and assign them to logical or appropriate categories. (A web page may be assigned to multiple categories when appropriate.) A directory is essentially a manual compilation. Broad categories can be broken down into narrower subcategories and sub-subcategories. This hierarchical structure can be used to browse deeper and deeper to narrow your focus and to locate materials you seek. A directory may also embed a search facility, which enables you to search in just that hierarchical category or to search the entire directory. Some hybrid directories also may allow you to expand your search onto the Web to locate non-categorized materials that are not included in the directory, graphic files, audio files, news wire services, and other resources.
Yahoo! used to be the largest directory on the Internet, but the company discontinued that directory at the end of 2014. One of the largest directories today is the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org). Another important reference directory you will want to include in your Favorites list is ipl2 at http://www.ipl.org, formerly known as the Internet Public Library. Each of the large directories has links to several million different web pages that have been compiled by their human editors. Because editors add new links to a directory, it may take some time (months, perhaps) before a new web page will appear in a general directory.
There is one more search tool that should be mentioned: the metasearch engine. A metasearch engine is another hybrid creature, one that allows you to enter a search in one place and have that engine simultaneously search multiple search engines for you. Does this seem like the answer to a prayer? Hardly! The results may be overwhelming. The search results may be less than relevant to the search terms and keywords you submitted. They also may yield duplicate search results and/or omit important leads. Many experienced researchers use metasearch engines only to learn which of the individual search engines has the most or the better search results. However, a metasearch tool can save a great deal of time and can often locate higher-quality results very quickly. Among the major metasearch engines in use today are Dogpile and Mamma (https://mamma.com).
Use a Search Engine to Get Great Results
The Simple Search or Basic Search screen is typically the main screen you reach at any search engine website. It allows you to type in a word or two or a phrase, press ENTER, and off you go. Too often, though, a researcher may believe that this is all there is to using a search engine. And while it may give you results, those results may be so massive as to be overwhelming, and may contain a whole lot of results that are useless to you. You may get a sense of all this from the first screen of your search results list. No one I know has the time to cull through 3,920,101 results, and I personally would be skeptical of a search result from Billy Ray Bob’s Down Home Page of Genieology! (And yes, that would be misspelled, wouldn’t it?) You need to narrow the field. That’s where the Advanced Search screen options may help. For Google, you can access the Advanced Search page at http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en. Look at the Advanced Search screen from Google in Figure 12-10.
FIGURE 12-10 The Advanced Search page of the Google search engine
Don’t forget to look for the Help link on the page. The following are the fields on the Advanced Search page:
• all these words Entering a single word asks for a search for all web pages that have that word anywhere in the page. Entering multiple words asks for a search for web pages that have both or all those words located anywhere in the page and in any order.
• this exact word or phrase Entering multiple words here will have the same effect as you would have had on the Simple Search screen had you enclosed them in double quotation marks. Here, however, you don’t have to enclose them in double quotation marks. You simply enter the words you want treated as a phrase and they will be automatically enclosed in quotation marks when the search begins.
• any of these words Entering multiple words asks for a search for web pages that have at least one of those words located anywhere in the page.
• none of these words Entering one or more words here has the effect of excluding from your search results any pages in which one or more of these words might be included anywhere in the page.
• numbers ranging from You may narrow your search using numbers, and Google will search for web pages with numbers with values from the beginning number through the ending number that you specify. This can be helpful if you want to specify a search for web pages in which a span of years might be included.
The Advanced Search screen also gives you the option of narrowing your search to only web pages written in a specific language.
You may opt to have the search engine return only certain document types (or exclude web pages with those types). These include Adobe PDF files, Adobe PostScript files, Microsoft Word files, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and Rich Text Format (RTF) files.
There are some simple rules of thumb to follow when using a search engine to search the Web. These apply to most search engines. However, read the Help materials for your favorite engine to get the best results.
• To enter a word, simply type it in the box. The search directories and search engines don’t care whether you type it in uppercase or lowercase.
• Avoid the use of a plural if you can avoid it. If you are searching for matches about bluebirds, enter the word as a singular bluebird and most search engines will give matches for both bluebird and bluebirds. When entering a surname that ends in an “s,” you may want to enter it without the “s” in order to see what matches you will get in your search results list.
• To enter an exact phrase in which two or more words must be contiguous to one another in the precise order you type them, make sure you enclose them in double quotation marks to make them one entity. This might include place names, such as “west virginia”, “muskogee oklahoma”, or “east riding” yorkshire England. You may also want to use this search technique for a full name so that the search engine doesn’t just search for the individual components. As an example, instead of entering john scott trotter, you might enter it as “john scott trotter” or “john trotter” or “john s trotter” so that your search results are more likely to only include web pages that include a person by that name.
• If you want to force a search engine to include in its search results any pages that have one or another of the words and/or exact phrases you enter as search criteria, insert the word OR in uppercase letters between the search words or phrases. For example, you might want to search for a person named Edward Holder in either Georgia or South Carolina, in which case you might enter the following:
“edward holder” georgia OR “south carolina”
• If you want to force a search engine to exclude from the search results any pages that include a particular word or exact phrase, insert the word NOT in uppercase letters. You can also indicate exclude by placing a minus sign (–) immediately before the term or phrase you wish to exclude. There should be no space between the minus sign and the term you wish to exclude. For example, you may have searched for Margaret McKnitt and found results from a place you knew she never lived. You might enter one of the following to exclude the unwanted place:
“margaret mcknitt” maryland NOT “north Carolina”
“margaret mcknitt” maryland - “north Carolina”
• Your search engine may offer the use of one or more “wildcard” characters. Some facilities, such as Google, allow you to use an asterisk (*) as a replacement for a character that you’re not sure about. For instance, you might be unsure of the spelling of a surname and you might enter jens*n to represent the spellings of Jensen or Jenson. Google also allows you to use the * as a wildcard for a word in an exact phrase. Enter “with a * in my heart” and your search results will include several links for the song or movie titled “With a Song in My Heart.” Be sure to check the Help facility in your favorite search tool to see how it handles searches and whether it offers the use of wildcard characters.
Use Another Way to Fine-Tune Your Google Searches
Did you know that Google operates more than 150 versions of its search engine? Yes, there are different versions of the search engine for different geographies, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and more. The websites and content that each national version of the search engine searches will vary. What that means to us as genealogists is that, if we are searching for ancestors and records in another country, we might want to use the Google search engine for that nationality. Let’s see how this works.
On the Internet, each country has been assigned a two-character country code top-level domain (ccTLD), and these are used at the end of URLs to distinguish the country of origin of the website. For example, the code for the United States is .us; the code for Canada is .ca; and the code for the United Kingdom is .uk. (Note that most U.S.-based companies, organizations, and educational institutions do not use .us as part of their website URLs, but instead use .com, .org, or .edu.)
So where do you get the list of two-letter country codes? One site, hosted by the Information Technology Associates, is located at http://www.theodora.com/country_digraphs.html. This site lists the codes in two alphabetical formats: by country and by code.
Search for a version of Google for a specific nationality by entering the following, and substituting the name of the country you are seeking:
google italy
Alternately, if you already know the country code, you can enter it as follows, substituting the two-letter country code for the xx shown here:
www.google.com.xx
or
www.google.xx
Please note that the URL for Google may include a .com or a .co, followed by the country code to indicate a commercial site.
The nice thing about visiting these Google pages is that Google has a facility called Google Translate. When you arrive at a page for a country whose language is different, Google will offer to translate it for you. A bar will appear at the top of the page that looks like the one shown in Figure 12-11. The translate facility will work on text in web pages, but it will not work on text within images. For example, if you were working with a Dutch website that had indexed images of original documents, Google would be able to translate the text in the indexes. However, when you click on a link from the index to view an image, there would be no translation. You would still need to read the language or engage the services of someone who could translate for you. However, by using a national version of Google to locate materials for ancestors and family members who may have come from that country, you may locate resources you might not have otherwise found.
FIGURE 12-11 Google automatically offers to translate a web page to your native language or to any other language you specify by making a selection in the drop-down menu.
Use Mailing Lists and Message Boards to Share Information and Collaborate with Others
Collaboration with other researchers is an ideal way to advance your genealogical research. You can make connections with other people who are researching the same lines as you or who have specific knowledge to share about a geographical area, specific record types, research methodologies, and more. Genealogy mailing lists and message boards have been around for a long time, and they are still as vibrant and viable as ever.
Before there was an Internet, genealogists turned to genealogical periodicals (magazines, newsletters, etc.) as a way to publish a question concerning the ancestors they were trying to learn more about. These messages, usually referred to as “queries,” were sometimes successful, but they usually were not, since the odds weren’t typically very high that the right person (a person who knew the answer to the question) would stumble upon the query. Few genealogists would have the patience to scan every genealogy publication to read every query, especially if that required culling through a backlog of issues going back many years.
Fortunately, the Internet brought a new tool: the electronic mailing list. A query could be sent to a single email address, and it would be automatically re-sent to every mailing list “subscriber.” By itself, this was not necessarily a huge improvement over printed queries appearing in subscription magazines or newsletters. However, electronic mailing lists can be archived, and often are. In other words, the older messages can be saved in a database and, as you’ve already learned, databases can be searched. This means that you can periodically go to the mailing list’s archive and search for information of interest.
Online services such as Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie, and America Online provided another way to exchange queries: a message board (also called a “bulletin board”). Similar message boards could be found on Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and as part of another, older messaging system known as Usenet. Eventually, message boards devoted to genealogy were established on the Web at such places as Ancestry.com (a merger of the RootsWeb message boards and the newer Ancestry.com boards, located at http://boards.ancestry.com).
A message board works like a cork bulletin board typically found in an office or school. Someone posts a message and hopes that interested parties will see it (and perhaps respond appropriately to it). As with a physical bulletin board, the messages may not remain posted forever. However, as a general rule, genealogy message boards archive messages so that they can be accessed indefinitely. Just to make certain that you clearly understand the differences between a mailing list and a message board, let’s explore and discuss both.
What Is a Mailing List?
A mailing list is a facility on the Internet that uses email to distribute a single message to all subscribers. There are tens of thousands of genealogical mailing lists to fulfill almost every interest you may have. These include mailing lists dedicated to the following topics: surnames, geographical locations, record types, ethnic groups, religious groups and records, fraternal organizations, immigration and naturalization, military records, cemeteries, genealogical software, search methodologies, and more.
The organization that hosts the vast majority of genealogical mailing lists is RootsWeb, and you can access their directory of available mailing lists at http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com.
It is easy to subscribe to a mailing list. For example, let’s say that I am researching my ancestors who lived in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia. The Floyd County mailing list would be a good place to learn more from people who also are researching there. I might learn about the history of the area, learn about archives of records of various types, and even meet someone who also is researching the same surnames that I am researching.
From the RootsWeb mailing list directory (see previous URL), I entered georgia floyd in the “Find a mailing list” field, clicked Find, and, on the next page, clicked the list for Floyd County, GA. Figure 12-12 shows the web page that is displayed.
FIGURE 12-12 Detail page for Floyd County, Georgia, mailing list
If you study Figure 12-12 for a few minutes, you will note several important pieces of information:
• The mailing list is named GAFLOYD-L.
• There are instructions for subscribing to:
• The GAFLOYD-L mailing list (individual messages)
• The GAFLOYD-D mailing list (digest mode)
• There are instructions for unsubscribing.
• There is an archive of older messages that may be browsed or searched, using the links shown here.
The difference between the GAFLOYD-L mailing list (individual messages) and the GAFLOYD-D mailing list (digest mode) is important to you as a subscriber. Subscribing to the mailing list whose name ends in L will result in your receiving a copy of every message as an individual message. This could bury you with email if this turns out to be a busy mailing list. Subscribing to the mailing list whose name ends in D will result in your receiving a digest version. This consists of a single email in which all the messages generated in a specific period will be included. There typically is a list of subject headers at the top of the message so that you can tell what types of information are in these messages, followed by the actual messages.
You can use the Find function to quickly search through a long digest for a word or phrase. You can access the Find facility by going to the menu bar on your browser, selecting Edit, and clicking the Find option in the drop-down list. You can also access this using a keyboard shortcut. On a PC, press the CTRL-F keys; on a Mac, press the COMMAND-F keys. When you subscribe to a digest version of a mailing list and receive a potentially lengthy email with a number of messages inside, the Find function allows you to quickly search for surnames or specific words in which you are interested. This can be a real timesaver.
When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will receive a welcome message. Print and save that message! I personally maintain a file folder labeled “Mailing Lists” in which I keep these messages. The welcome message will provide important information to you to help you maximize your use of the mailing list:
• The purpose of the mailing list and some of its most important rules for use
• How to subscribe and unsubscribe
• How to contact the list administrator
• How to browse and/or search the list archives (if available)
By keeping the welcome message, you will be able to quickly locate important information about the mailing list when you need it. In particular, if you decide you want to get off the list, you will have instructions about how to unsubscribe. If there are problems with the list, such as a nasty person who is abusing his or her privilege of participating, the email address of the list owner is invaluable.
When you join a mailing list, it is a good idea to “lurk before you leap.” In other words, watch the exchanges of information and messages for a week or two before you jump in. You may find that this isn’t really the mailing list you want, and you can unsubscribe.
When you subscribe, also browse or search the archives, if there is one, for answers to any basic questions you have. People on mailing lists cringe when a new person (a “newbie”) jumps in and asks a question that has been asked and answered a hundred times.
Last but not least, there are three important rules you should follow:
• Never send an email of a commercial nature unless the description of the list expressly permits it. Sending commercial email on a mailing list is considered to be spamming and is offensive to subscribers.
• Always be polite and patient. There are always “newbies” and your courtesy is expected and appreciated.
• Never type in all capital letters. It is, in the Internet world, considered to be “shouting,” not to mention that all caps are more difficult to read. The only exception is that you should type surnames in all caps in order to make them stand out.
What Is a Message Board?
A message board, as explained before, is a place on the Internet where people who share an interest in a topic post electronic messages. The difference between a mailing list and a message board is that, for a mailing list, people subscribe via email and messages arrive in their email mailbox. With a message board, the onus is on you to visit the board, to search out information, and to read the postings there yourself.
The Ancestry.com Message Boards at http://boards.ancestry.com are among the best available. Figure 12-13 shows the main screen at the Ancestry.com Message Boards. As you can see, it is easy to locate specific surnames, localities, and topics. It also is easy, using the search template toward the top, to either search all message boards for a name or text or to find a specific message board. Finding a message board is easy: just fill in the name and go from there.
FIGURE 12-13 Main page at the Ancestry.com Message Boards
I entered the surname Weatherly, simply clicked the link and was taken to the page displayed in Figure 12-14. If you study this screen of the Weatherly message board for a few minutes, you’ll see that you can search either all the message boards or just this one for specific words or terms or names. Just click the radio button you want.
FIGURE 12-14 The Weatherly message board at Ancestry
You have some other options, including the following:
• Begin New Thread Click this to post a new message on a new topic to this board.
• Add Board to (or Remove Board from) Favorites Whenever you are signed in to Ancestry.com and you visit the message boards, you will have a customized list of places to visit. You must be a registered user to use this feature.
• Add Board to (or Remove Board from) Alerts Allows you to set up a system that sends you an email every time someone posts a message to this message board. You must be a registered user to use this feature.
What you will see in message board postings is something called a “thread.” A thread is nothing more than “a thread of conversation” about a single topic. It consists of an original posting and all of the responses to it and the responses to the responses. Each posting is further indented to indicate the response in the thread chain. For example, Figure 12-15 shows an example of a thread that began 1 August 1999 and that has continued through a series of message postings.
FIGURE 12-15 Messages on the Weatherly message board displayed in “thread view”
There are two display options available when working with the Ancestry.com Message Boards. The first is the “thread view.” The page shown in Figure 12-15 is a thread view. The second is the “flat view” in which each message is displayed in its entirety. Either view can be sorted into oldest first or newest first sequence. You can switch from one display option to the other at will, and this makes reading the entire correspondence in a whole thread easier than having to click through each one individually. In flat view they are shown on a single screen. What’s more, you can use the browser’s Find facility to quickly search an entire web page for a specific name or word you want to locate.
Again, you can search either all the Ancestry.com Message Boards or just the one for this topic, in this case, the Weatherly surname. As you can see, there are some options to help you narrow your search. At the bottom of the screen are five additional important links:
• Request New Board You use this if you wish to submit a request to have a new message board established when a surname or topic is not addressed.
• Community Guidelines This contains guidelines for what is and is not a proper use of the message boards.
• Board Help As always, this is your best friend when you need help and guidance.
• Board FAQ This contains frequently asked questions and answers.
• Send Feedback You can comment on your experience with the message boards by clicking this link, completing a comment form, and sending it.
Write Effective Messages and Postings That Get Results
Well-constructed, well-written messages get results. However, you need to know how to create an effective message. A great message really starts with a great subject line that captures the reader’s attention. The subject line should be brief but descriptive. It should tell the reader what is inside the message and help him or her determine whether to read the message at all. The subject line content should include details such as the following:
• Name of person sought
• Location
• Time period
• All of the above or other data
Let’s look at three examples of potential subject lines. The first is for Rebecca MONFORT who lived in Greene County, Georgia, and her life dates were 1819 to 1886. Please note that the surname is in all uppercase letters to make spotting the surname simpler. This subject line tells the reader who, where, and when. This should be enough to help the reader decide if this is a person about whom he or she would like to learn more or if he or she has something to share. The reader will open this message.
Rebecca MONFORT—Greene Co., GA—1819-1886
The second example tells the reader that the author has or wants information concerning a church in a particular location: Madison, North Carolina, in the county of Rockingham.
Zion Baptist Church—Madison, Rockingham, NC
In the third example, the subject tells the reader a lot of information. In this case, the author is seeking information about Brisco HOLDER, who was born in 1879 and who is believed to have died in the mid-1920s. Mr. Holder was in Georgia, and then moved to Alabama, and then to Kentucky, and then to some unknown place until his death certificate was located in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. (The greater than character, >, indicates that the person moved.) Reading just this header, you might determine (correctly) that the author is seeking to learn exactly where and when Mr. Holder died and where he was buried.
Brisco HOLDER—1879-ca. 1925—GA>AL>KY>?>MO
These are all examples of good subject headers. A subject line that reads “Help!” or “Wilson Family” or “Want Grandpa’s Dates” is not effective.
The body of the message is just as important as the subject line. It should be concise and should indicate the following:
• The full name (and any nickname or alias) of the individual
• The location in which the person was located
• The time period about which you are interested
• What it is specifically that you are seeking
• Any research you have already conducted or sources you have checked, regardless of whether they helped your search or not
• What else you might be willing to share with another researcher
• How someone can contact or respond to you
Let’s look at an example of the body of a good message in Figure 12-16. The author wrote a subject line that clearly provided the surname and the location of the query. The body of the message indicated that the author was seeking information on one John N. (or M.) SWORDS, his wife, and other members of the family. He provided a detailed description of what he knew, and hoped that this would help the reader determine what he or she might be able to share with the author.
FIGURE 12-16 Example of a good message board posting
As you can see, the use of electronic mailing lists and message boards can really expand and extend your research range by providing the ability to advertise the fact that you are seeking information. You will be surprised how many other researchers, even your own cousins, are out there using these electronic queries. Mailing lists and message boards, along with other Internet resources, provide you with opportunities to share information and to collaborate with other researchers.
Locate and Use Additional Resources in Your Research
Everything we have discussed so far can contribute to your understanding of how and where to locate important genealogical resources for your research. However, there are so many, many more materials available to you! Consider for a moment that you are visiting your local public library to conduct family history research. You certainly will spend time in the genealogy collection. However, you are sure to encounter material that will cause you to want to use additional library materials that are not physically located within the genealogy and local history department. You will want to consult maps and atlases, and these may be in another part of the library. Encyclopedias, biographies, dictionaries, and language translation books are also in another area. Calendar and timeline books are elsewhere, as are telephone directories and other people-finder materials. The list goes on and on. And hopefully, in the course of your library visits, you are now utilizing all of the resources there already, and not just the genealogy books.
Let’s explore a number of additional Internet-based resources that may be of help to you in your research. In the following sections, I will suggest some examples of Internet searches to help you locate materials for that genre, and will include some of my favorite sites for your review and enjoyment. Your job in all of this is to search for materials that will be of use in your own research, and to incorporate these tools into your search strategies.
Online Map Resources
Maps are an essential part of your research work. It is imperative that you use historical maps to locate precisely where your ancestors lived at the time they were there. Contemporaneous historical maps, compared with today’s maps, can help you focus in on the places where documents may now reside. Political boundaries have altered tremendously over the centuries. Nations have come and gone, counties and provinces have been formed and divided into smaller, more easily governed areas, towns have been founded and disappeared, places have been renamed, and some places have simply disappeared. It is therefore important to be able to locate historical maps, atlases, and gazetteers (place name dictionaries) of all types.
Following are some examples of Internet searches that might be of help to you. Substitute the place name you are seeking for the one(s) shown in the following examples. Please note that the minus (–) character is being used to exclude results with a particular word or from a particular type of site, as are the double quotation marks (“ ”) that form an exact phrase. You may use any search engine you like, and may want to use the Advanced Search facility to exclude some materials. For example, for the map searches, perhaps you will want to exclude commercial sources and therefore use the Advanced Search facility to exclude the.com sites from your results. (Remember: You’ve learned a lot already about how to search the Internet more effectively. Don’t slip back into your old ways!)
map “south carolina”
map persia
atlas Georgia 1895
gazetteer ireland 1800s -site:.com
(This search was conducted using Google, and locates pages with the words “gazetteer,” “Ireland,” and “1800s,” and excludes the commercial [.com] sites. Be sure to check the Help of your favorite search engine to verify the correct format for including and excluding specific domains and other data.)
I have a number of favorite websites where I find historical maps. I encourage you to try some of these terrific resources for yourself.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps The map collection in the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas-Austin includes more than 250,000 maps, and approximately 50,000 of these have been digitized and made available online. They include historic and modern maps from around the world. They can provide you with perspective of the places your ancestors lived.
David Rumsey Map Collection at http://www.davidrumsey.com The David Rumsey Map Collection contains more than 51,000 images of maps, atlases, globes, and prints from his massive collection. There are several image viewers embedded in the website, and digital overlays from Google Maps and Google Earth are available. These allow comparisons between historic views and contemporary views of the same areas.
Library of Congress Geography & Map Division at http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap The Library of Congress Geography & Map Reading Room website is an excellent place to begin searching the facility’s extensive collection. Be sure to visit the American Memory Map Collections page at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html.
Dictionaries
There are hundreds of sources for dictionaries online for English and for other languages that may be helpful for translation purposes. Some excellent dictionaries may be found in the following sites:
• ipl2, under Resources by Subject http://www.ipl.org
• Wikipedia, the largest online reference compendium http://www.wikipedia.com
Language Translation
We already discussed Google Translate earlier in this chapter. There is, however, another version of this translation facility. The Google Language Tools page at https://translate.google.com includes a language translation tool. Here you may enter text and have it translated from one language to another, or you may simply enter a URL and that single web page will be translated to the language of your choice.
Please recognize that no online translation is ever going to be perfect. The idiomatic variations and vernacular may not translate well. However, the translation you obtain should be sufficient to help you gather the meaning of the text. For more precise translations, you may want to seek a professional or contact a college or university where students are learning the language. A professor may be willing to have a student assist you as a for-credit project.
Historical and Biographical Resources
Information abounds on the Internet about history and about the lives of notable or historical figures. The databases at Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com) and at Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com) and the HeritageQuest Online databases available in libraries and archives include a number of important digitized book resources in this area. The Family History Books page at FamilySearch (https://books.familysearch.org) provides links to digitized book collections in important genealogical libraries that you can use.
Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com) is a good place to begin to locate historical and biographical reference articles. In addition, you can use your favorite search engine to search for information. (Remember to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate the information you find on websites, and look for source citations that can help you locate authoritative materials to verify and extend your research.) Here are some examples of searches you might employ using your Internet browser and a search engine:
“george washington” biography
“george washington” genealogy
“richard ball” genealogy
pedigree “mark twain”
life “queen Victoria” –albert
Note in the last example that the minus sign (–) was placed immediately in front of the word or phrase to be excluded. In this case, the search would attempt to exclude details about Prince Albert.
Calendars
You may find good use for calendars in your research. Remember that there was a switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 in Britain and the British Empire. The changeover in other parts of the world occurred at different times. A good place to find a reference table for the changeover is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Timeline. You also can search the Internet for calendar converters using the keywords julian gregorian jewish and others as needed.
Perhaps you want to know on what day of the week an ancestral event occurred, in which case a perpetual calendar is just what you want. There are many on the Internet, but one of the easiest to use is at http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/perpetualcalendar.html.
People Finders and Telephone Directories
In the course of your research, you are going to want to try to locate “lost relatives” and others. There are many online telephone and people finder resources on the Internet and most are geographically specific. Be aware that there are a couple of drawbacks to using these facilities:
• People with unlisted telephone numbers are not included in the telephone number and people finder databases.
• People’s cellular telephone numbers are not included in these databases.
• Email addresses are seldom if ever updated. Therefore, if you find an old email address for someone, a message you send may not be delivered, and some email service providers do not generate “postmaster” messages indicating a failed delivery attempt.
Among the most prolific of the people finder facilities for U.S. residents and businesses are the resources shown in the following list. You will want to search regional versions of Yahoo! and Google for other countries to locate online telephone, email, and people finder services. There may be a cost for more than just the basic search in some of these facilities.
• The New Ultimates http://www.newultimates.com
• PeopleSearch.net http://www.peoplesearch.net
• PeopleSpot http://www.peoplespot.com
• superpages.com http://www.superpages.com
• Veromi http://www.veromi.net
• Zabasearch http://www.zabasearch.com