Subject Guide: Genealogy

Web Sites

The following free genealogy web sites are highly recommended by the Reference Staff.

• Castle Garden
  http://www.castlegarden.org
  Produced by the non-profit organization The Battery Conservatory, the Castle Garden Web Site offers access to 12 million searchable digital images of passenger lists and ship's manifests travelling to New York harbor from 1830 through 1892. During this period the "castle" - now a national moment - was the United States' primary port of entry for the east coast.


• Cyndi's List
  http://www.cyndislist.com
  What began a decade ago as a "hobby" for webmaster Cyndi Howell, her web site now boasts over 250,000 links to genealogy web sites. Her site is considered a primary genealogy resource and is a great starting point to conduct research. Indexed alphabetically and topically, the site is easy-to-use and offers something for every family historian.


• Ellis Island
  http://www.ellisisland.org
  Located next to the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, Ellis Island was once considered America's "Golden Door" of immigration since the arrival of its first émigré - an Irish girl named Annie Moore - in 1892. From that time until 1924, Ellis Island processed over 20 million immigrants from all regions of the world. Through the combined efforts of the Statue of Liberty Foundation and the National Park Service, the Ellis Island Web Site provides access to over 25 million searchable digital images of passenger lists and ship's manifests as well as free tools for genealogy research.


• Family Search
  http://www.familysearch.org
  Based in Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints houses the world's largest collection of genealogy materials. Part of this collection is available for searching and browsing at the LDS' Family Search Web Site. Here, genealogists have access to key resources such as the International Genealogical Index, the Social Security Death Index, and a variety of census records including the 1880 U.S. Federal Census. Users can also explore LDS member-contributed data such as Ancestral File and the Pedigree Resource File. In addition, users can search the LDS' Family History Catalog and download an array of free genealogy forms and guides to aid their research.


• Family Search Labs
  http://labs.familysearch.org
  In addition to the Family Search Web Site, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is developing a variety of excellent new web sites to facility family history. Of key interest to genealogists is the "Records Search" portion of the Family Search Labs Web Site. Although access to Records Search does require email registration, it provides users with searchable digital images of the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, the 1930 Mexican Census, the Freedman's Bank Records, and death certificates for Georgia, Ohio, and Ontario.


• Rootsweb
  http://www.rootsweb.com
  One of the first instances of an online genealogy portal, Rootsweb has a long-standing tradition of volunteerism and user-contributed data. Rootsweb serves as the umbrella under which several notable projects exist. The US GenWeb Project links online genealogy communities geographically, down to the county and city level. The US GenWeb Archives Project houses a variety of user-contributed vital records and transcriptions of pertinent data, also arranged geographically. The WorldConnect Project is a collection of user-contributed family trees that are searchable and downloadable. Rootsweb also contains message boards and mailing lists covering a range of topics from surnames to software.


• WeRelate
  http://www.werelate.org
  An exciting new-comer to the Internet, WeRelate is the genealogy community's first global Wiki. Developed primarily by the Allen County Public Library - which houses the United State's largest public genealogy collection - WeRelate is a unique space that combines factual information, how-to articles, source material, images and user-contributed family data all within a user-friendly Wiki interface.