Family History Research on the Internet
In the recent past, if you wished to trace your family history, you had few options that did not require traveling to the locations in which the pertinent documents were archived. The Internet has changed that; you can now do much of your genealogy research from home. In the last decade, thousands of genealogy websites have been added to the Internet.Some of the premier genealogy sites require a paid subscription. However, one of the best sites for the beginning genealogist is free to anyone who has access to the Internet. The FamilySearch website (www.familysearch.org) provides access to several family history databases, including census records, the Social Security death index, and the International Genealogical Index.
At this time, the most popular subscription website is Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which provides access to a wide range of databases, including U.S. census images for all years from 1790 to 1930. The subscription price for Ancestry.com varies according to which databases are selected; access to this website will run between $160 and $300 per year.
A less expensive alternative to Ancestry.com is the Godfrey Memorial Library website. For an annual fee of $35, www.godfrey.org provides access to census images, newspaper archives, family and local history books, and the Accessible Archives database, which contains the complete text of county histories for Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York.
Cyndi’s List is a free website that does not contain any actual databases. Instead, www.cyndislist.com includes more than 264,000 links to other genealogical websites and is a good place to start if you are looking for all web pages that contain information on a certain subject, for example, “Scotland.”
At the May meeting of the SaddleBrooke Genealogy Club, Barbara Salyer, a past-president of both the Arizona State Genealogical Society and the Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board, will give a presentation on “Family History Research on the Internet.” The meeting will be held on Thursday, May 1, starting at 1 p.m. in the Coyote Room of the SaddleBrooke Clubhouse. All SaddleBrooke residents are welcome to attend. Contact Richard McQuate at rimac@wbhsi.net for further information.
