Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, West Palm Beach, FL

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Online Genealogical Resources


Now that you have gathered information about your family from family bibles and family stories, the next step is to organize your findings. The following websites are a few of the top resources available to help you search for and organize your family ancestry information.

This site is a service provided by The Church of Latter Day Saints. FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. For over 100 years, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide.

This site is an exhaustive list of genealogical resources on the internet. It is categorized, cross-referenced and updated regularly.

One of the most famous genealogy websites, ancestry.com has many instructional videos. It lists over ten million family trees that you can search. It has billions of historical records that include census, birth, marriage, death and Social Security.

Google is the search engine of choice for many genealogists due to its ability to return relevant search results for genealogy and surname queries and its huge index. Google is much more than just a tool for finding Web sites. Here are 25 tips on how to use google in your ancestry search.

I’m including this link so you can watch past episodes of NBC’s acclaimed series, “Who Do You Think You Are”, which follows celebrities as they trace their family trees. 



Sunday, May 15, 2011

Preparing for Your Ancestor Hunt

To start your family history research go over the things that you know...

  • Jot down everything you know about your family.
  • Document names, dates and places
  • Write down things that you remember hearing about your family    
Go on a treasure hunt, search for...
  • Birth, marriage and death certificates
  • Newspaper clippings
  • Family bible and religious records
  • Letters, diaries and journals
  • Photo albums
  • Naturalization and citizenship papers
Enlist your relatives in the search...
  • Consider recording as you talk with your relatives
  • Relatives may suggest others to talk to
  • Check to see if a relative has started researching your family