I started doing genealogy research in 1998. Why? Because one of my grandmothers passed away in 1998. After the funeral service, burial service, and wake, the immediate family returned to the house Grandpa and Grams lived in. We sat around the living room, trying to forget our sorrows with funny stories about Grams and the rest of the family. The only problem was a lot of those stories had significant fragments of them lost to time and memory. Why? Because Grams had always been the repository for the family history. I decided that needed to change.
So, I started with the basics... My grandparents' names and birthdays (from both sides of the family tree). As of today, I have 10,247 names in my genealogy files. One line of my family tree goes back to the year 987 A.D. When I started, there weren't a lot of online resources. Now, there are thousands of them. When I started, it was an inexpensive hobby. You rarely had to pay for anything unless you wanted photocopies of documents or wanted to order something from the government. Even then it was at a reasonable price. Today? You could easily spend thousands.
I took a break from genealogy research because I decided to go to graduate school. Now that I'm done with my studies (at least for now), I decided to pick it up again. I missed those trips to cemeteries and distant locations. I missed the dusty basements, searching through old county records, and the quiet of libraries. I mist the excitement of unexpected discoveries. I even miss the sick feeling I got when I was able to make connections that I didn't want to make (i.e. slave owners and murders exist in my family tree).
I've barely scratched the surface of my family history, with all it's interesting twists and turns. And I love that I've connected with so many cousins, but I know there are far more out there for me to meet. So, I thought I would share with you some of the electronic resources I've come to find of value. Who knows? Maybe you'll make some connections of your own and discover a few cousins you didn't know.
Here are a few of my favorites:
- Ancestry.com - http://www.ancestry.com - This website is one of the biggest repositories of information. You will find it difficult NOT to find someone in your family tree. However, be forewarned. While this is a great resource, probably one of the best out there, it is extremely expensive to access. While is does offer free access to a limited amount of information, when Ancestry says "limited" they really do mean limited. A monthly membership for U.S. records only (which really isn't worth it because you will definitely need those international records) is $12.95. To get access to everything? $24.95! That is roughly $300 per year! And Ancestry makes it very difficult to cancel your membership. Once you give them your credit card number, they hold on to it. The only way to cancel is to call them, and they don't make it easy to find the phone number to call. And when you do call, the customer service representative will hard sell you.
- State Archive Digital databases. These are amazing resources, and often the information is absolutely free. Through my state archives (www.digitalarchives.wa.gov), I've found everything from census records to copies of marriage certificates - for free!! To find the state archives you need, simply do a web search. Make sure you include words like "digital archives" to narrow your search.
- Cyndi's List - http://www.cyndislist.com - This website is a pioneer for online resources. It provides links to thousands of genealogy sites, categorized by whatever your needs. This is another great, free resource.
- US Gen Web Project - http://www.usgenweb.org - This website is also a pioneer in online genealogy information. It is broken down by state, followed by counties. It includes everything from government-based libraries to genealogy societies. It is absolutely free to access.
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