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Learn How to Successfully Research Your Ancestors on the Internet
HOW TO…
Genealogical research is one of the top uses of the Internet, and it is no surprise that so many of us are confused by all the options and overwhelmed by the information we find. Making sense of what you find on the Internet means understanding what you are looking at. Understanding the various types of Internet resources is not unlike visiting your local public library and recognizing that dictionaries are vastly different resources than fiction and nonfiction books, magazines are different than journals, and microfilm is different than the Internet. You use your critical thinking skills every time you visit the library to differentiate between materials you want to use; to recognize what is current vs. noncurrent information; and to discern between quality, authoritative, and unbiased information as opposed to that which is not.
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 resources you use. Ultimately, you will work all of these sources in tandem to obtain more comprehensive results and 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 have added even more tools for genealogists to collaborate with one another. These are discussed in Chapter 14.
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 billions of web pages, but the Internet really is a collection of numerous tools. These can be grouped into three main categories:
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 distribution list. Email has, like web pages, become more than just textual. 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. Genealogy message boards are used by many thousands of persons each day to post queries concerning persons with a specific surname, questions about a geographical area, or questions 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 and are used for different purposes. If you understand their 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 Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) facilities that provide 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.
Categorize the Major Types of Genealogical Web Page Resources
No matter whether you’re just starting your genealogical odyssey on the Internet or you’re a seasoned web researcher, there is always something new to be discovered there. What you must remember is that websites change over time. New content is added, content is updated, 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 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:
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FIGURE 11-1 The Ancestry.com Learning Center drop-down list
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FIGURE 11-2 Main page from the Canadian Genealogy & History Links website
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FIGURE 11-3 The JewishGen site provides the most comprehensive set of links to Jewish resources on the Internet.
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FIGURE 11-4 Main page of the USGenWeb Project site
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 across 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.
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Cyndi’s List at www.cyndislist.com is the work of genealogy maven Cyndi Howells, and is one of the largest compilations of genealogy websites on the Internet. Started in 1996, the site now has more than 309,900 links and continues to grow.
“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:
In addition to these and similar websites, you will find instructional information on some of the compilation sites mentioned above 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 a number of 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:
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 fastest growing area of the Internet for genealogical resources is in online databases. There are both free databases and fee-based databases. Some sites offer a combination of databases. Various payment arrangements are available to access data at the fee-based sites. They 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 try the site on a short-term basis before committing yourself to a lengthy subscription.
In this category of web resources, you should consider exploring as far as you possibly can in these areas, and returning often to these sites for new and updated materials. Some of the best of the databases are listed here:
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FIGURE 11-5 The Advanced Search page of the FamilySearch.org site allows you to search all the available databases or to browse and locate available databases by geographical region.
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 that there will be detailed information about each item. If a book or records are available in a microfilmed format, there will be a film number included in the catalog record. You can present these at the nearest LDS FamilySearch Center (FSC), and the staff can work with you to arrange to order the rental microform materials from the FHL in Salt Lake City.
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FamilySearch is working to digitize, index, and make available on FamilySearch .org all of the microfilmed records they have captured over the decades. Volunteers all over the world are working to index the images so that they can be easily searched. If you are interested in volunteering to help with indexing records, visit https://indexing.familysearch.org for more details and to register.
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FIGURE 11-6 Revolutionary War Pension file for John Swords at Fold3.com
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FIGURE 11-7 Main page of The National Archives (UK)
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GEDCOM is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, and refers to a specific computer file format. GEDCOMs are extracted data files produced from genealogy database software programs in a common structured format. a GEDCOM from one genealogy database program can be imported into another genealogy database program, and uploaded to certain genealogy websites, complete with individuals’ information.
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:
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.
Structure Effective Searches to Locate Information
The Web is an enormous place, currently consisting of billions of individual pages. In reality, we can only guess at its actual size, but it is growing 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. Before long, search engines appeared. The problem is, however, that over time the directories have added search facilities to their sites and search engines have added directories to their sites. For example, the largest of the directories, Yahoo!, now embeds a search engine that can either search within Yahoo! itself or reach out onto the Web to search millions of web pages. Google, on the other hand, as the largest search engine currently, also has created other facilities. Both Yahoo! and Google include facilities to search the Web for graphics and audio files, as well as to locate news and financial information. Google also includes an impressive Maps facility. With that in mind, let’s define each of the tools and what distinguishes one from another.
A search engine is an index of web pages that has been created by a mechanical 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 index indexes: the title, the meta tags, and the body 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 offer both a simple and an Advanced Search facility, the second of which allows you to select criteria to narrow your search results.
Examples of the leading search engines today include Google (located at www.google.com, www.google.co.uk, and other addresses in other countries), Bing (www.bing.com), Ask.com (www.ask.com), and a number of others.
A genealogy-specific search engine called Mocavo (www.mocavo.com) made its debut in 2011 and claims to search billions of free genealogy records. The Advanced Search page of Mocavo is shown in Figure 11-8.
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FIGURE 11-8 Mocavo is a genealogy-specific search engine that searches free genealogy records on the Internet.
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 directory is essentially a 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.
Among the largest directories today are Yahoo! (shown in Figure 11-9 and located at www.yahoo.com), Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org), MSN (www.msn.com), and several others. Another important reference directory you will want to include in your Favorites list is ipl2 at 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.
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FIGURE 11-9 Main page at Yahoo!
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 (shown in Figure 11-10 and located at www.dogpile.com), MetaCrawler (www.metacrawler.com), and Mamma (www.mamma.com).
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FIGURE 11-10 Main page of metasearch engine Dogpile.com
There are some simple rules of thumb to use in your work with searching the Web. These apply to most search engines. However, read the Help materials for your favorite engine to get the best results.
These rules will hold true when searching in both a directory and a search engine, but please check the Help facility in your favorite search tool to see how it handles searches.
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, 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 2,175,218 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. You can access the Advanced Search page at www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en. Look at the Advanced Search screen from Google in Figure 11-11.
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FIGURE 11-11 The Advanced Search page of the Google search engine
Don’t forget to check the Advanced Search Tips (the Help text) link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The following are the fields on the Advanced Search page:
The Advanced Search screen also gives you the option of narrowing your search to only web pages written in a specific language. (You may need to download from your browser’s development website the character set to install to display certain characters, such as Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Cyrillic, Korean, Kanji, or others.)
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.
You may specify how current a web page must be in order to be returned. However, remember that many web pages contain no date information to make this type of specification 100 percent reliable.
One very helpful feature is the occurrences specification. Click the link labeled “Date, usage rights, region, and more” to expand these additional options. Here you can designate how recently the page was created or updated. You also can indicate where in the web page the term(s)/phrase appears by choosing one of the options from the “Where your keywords show up” drop-down list:
The next option, which can narrow your search dramatically, is the selection of Region (or domain). You can specify web pages whose addresses contain the domain(s) you indicate or you can cause pages from certain domains not to be included in your search results. Be sure to read the Help material at the search engine you are using to make sure you know how to use this restrictive filter effectively. You can also specify a numeric range. This can be helpful because you can use it to specify year ranges for your searches.
Two other options, located at the bottom of the page, include searches for similar web pages or for web pages that link to a web page. In either case, you may enter a web address (URL) to locate other websites of these types.
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Mailing lists and message boards are among the best tools to use to share and obtain information from other researchers. Both have subjects related to surnames, geographical areas, ethnic groups, and a wide variety of other topics.
Use Mailing Lists and Message Boards to Share Information and Collaborate with Others
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 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 tool referred to as Usenet. Eventually, message boards devoted to genealogy were established on the Web, at such places as GenForum at Genealogy.com (http://genforum.genealogy.com) and Ancestry.com (a merger of the old RootsWeb message boards and the newer Ancestry.com boards, located at http://boards.ancestry.com).
A message board works like a cork bulletin board found in a typical office or school. Someone posts a message and hopes that interested parties will see it (and perhaps respond appropriately to it). As with a cork 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 literally are 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, city directories, 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 URL above), 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 11-12 shows the web page that is displayed.
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FIGURE 11-12 Detail page for Floyd County, Georgia, mailing list
If you study Figure 11-12 for a few minutes, you will note several important pieces of information:
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 a page 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 Macintosh, press the COMMAND (image)-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 this 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:
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:
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 11-13 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. For example, I entered the name weatherly (no quotes) in the Find a board about a specific topic box and was presented with a new page for the Weatherly surname.
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FIGURE 11-13 Main page at the Ancestry.com Message Boards
I simply clicked the link and was taken to the page displayed in Figure 11-14. 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.
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FIGURE 11-14 The Weatherly message board at Ancestry.com
You have some other options, including the following:
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 11-15 shows an example of a thread that began 9 June 2000 and that has continued through a series of message postings.
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FIGURE 11-15 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 11-15 is a thread view. The second is the “flat view” in which each message is displayed in its entirety. This is shown in Figure 11-16. 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.
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FIGURE 11-16 Messages on the Weatherly message board displayed in “flat view”
You also have the option to display the postings in date sequence in either the collapsed or expanded form. When using the message boards to search for particular text, you may find the Advanced Search feature here as useful as the same function in one of the search engines or directories we have discussed. The Advanced Search template for the Ancestry.com Message Boards is shown in Figure 11-17.
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FIGURE 11-17 Advanced Search template for the Ancestry.com Message Boards
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:
Remember that the Ancestry.com Message Boards aren’t the only ones that exist. The GenForum message boards at http://genforum.genealogy.com are a separate group of boards. FamilySearch.org also has an area of message boards in its Forums area at www.familysearch.org/learn/forums. For maximum exposure for your query, it’s a great idea to post your query messages at multiple sites.
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 readers’ 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:
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 died in the 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:
Let’s look at an example of the body of a good message in Figure 11-18. 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.
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FIGURE 11-18 Example of a good message board posting
In contrast, let’s look at an example of the body of a bad message in Figure 11-19. The author posted this message with the impossible subject line of “any info-Wilson” on the WILSON surname message board. I seriously doubt that anyone read the message, because of the subject line. The author has posted a detailed name and date of birth, but no location. The reader would need to dissect the message, reorganize its content, and further correspond with the author to really determine what the author is seeking.
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FIGURE 11-19 Example of a less than great 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 aps 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 Boolean search characters + and − are being used, 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:
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FIGURE 11-20 The Geography & Map Reading Room page from the Library of Congress site
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:
Language Translation
The SYSTRAN site (located at www.systransoft.com) remains one of the very best resources for language-to-language translation. The SYSTRANBox product provides you with two methods you can use:
The Google Language Tools page at www.google.com/language_tools includes a language translation tool.
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 and Fold3.com and the HeritageQuest Online databases available in libraries and archives include a number of important resources in this area.
Wikipedia (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 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 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:
Among the most prolific of the people finder facilities for U.S. residents and businesses are the resources shown in the list below. You will want to search regional versions of Yahoo! and Google for other countries to locate online telephone, email, and people finder services.
All of your reading and studying will not pay off until you apply what you’ve learned in a practical way—and do it on a regular basis. Throughout this book, you have learned the foundations for research and analysis, applying your critical thinking skills to both the traditional genealogical resources and items and to electronic materials of all sorts. All types of materials can, individually, be used as important tools for your investigative work. By themselves, they are great reference materials. However, when you combine them and work them in tandem with one another, they become a powerful toolkit for your work. That includes the home sources you have found, the documentary evidence you have located and personally reviewed, the databases you have researched, and the Internet resources you have accessed. It is important that you recognize how important working all of these together can be.
The next chapter is “Research and Verify Your Ancestors Using Genetic Genealogy (DNA). Chapter 14 will discuss social networking tools on the Internet as well as a variety of other fascinating electronic resources. Some of these can help you connect with other genealogists and collaborate with them on your research. Others can be used to obtain education and expand your knowledge. You’re going to be excited to see how much the Internet resources have grown to extend your research reach. You’re really on your way now!