Genealogy

Besides the sites below, don't neglect the search engines or online telephone directories as tools in trying to find a long lost relative. A couple of years ago I entered my mother's maiden name into the search field of one of the popular search engines and discovered that a long lost cousin was a teacher in Idaho. Using an online telephone directory, I contacted him and found that he was getting married within the week. In another experiment, I entered my surname and discovered my uncle's World War II history. A junior officer on my uncle's torpedoed ship wrote a history of their common experience for his Web site (fifty years later). Of course, it helps to have an uncommon surname like Zombeck rather than Smith.

The Genographic Project - National Geographic Society
www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/
"The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages."

Ellis Island, The American Family Immigration History Center (AFIHC)
www.ellisisland.org
About 40% of all Americans can trace ancestors to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. Between 1892 and 1924 more than 22 million passengers and ships' crews came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York. This web site provides information about individual immigrants, including arrival date, ethnicity, ship name, departure port, and marital status. Try also Stephen Morses's tools for searching the Ellis Island database and others.

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites in the Internet
www.CyndisList.com
88,650 categorized and cross-referenced links!

Vital Record's Information - United States
www.vitalrec.com
This site contains information about where to obtain vital records (such as birth, death and marriage certificates and divorce decrees) from each state, territory and county of the United States. You'll have to pay for information.

Social Security Death Index Interactive Search
ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com

New England Historic Genealogical Society
www.newenglandancestors.org
A national center for family and local history. Although the emphasis is on New England and eastern Canada records and genealogies, resources from other parts of the country are listed.

Family Search
www.familysearch.org
The Mormon Church site. The largest collection of free family history, family tree, and genealogy records in the world.

RootsWeb
www.rootsweb.com
The oldest free genealogy site.

The USGenWeb Project
usgenweb.org
The USGenWeb Project consists of a group of volunteers working together to provide Internet Web sites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States. The Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free access for everyone. Organization is by county and state, and this Web site provides you with links to all the state Web sites which, in turn, provide gateways to the counties.

In addition: