Grow Your Family Tree Online

An introduction to genealogy offers readers information on tracing a family's heritage, explaining how to use Internet resources to aid one's search, and including tips for nontraditional families and special situations.

Are you interested in harnessing the power of the Internet to research your family history online? Do you know how to locate copies of your ancestors' marriage and death records from the privacy of your own home? Would you like to know how to access lesser-known state-specific resources? Is it unclear why your ancestors indicate they're from Virginia when you know they were born in Kentucky? In his groundbreaking new book, author Ryan Elson provides answers to these questions and more, along with details on hundreds of websites that will move your research forward and help grow your family tree. Whether you're a newcomer to the genealogy game or have been at it for years, "Grow Your Family Tree Online" will give you the tools you need to build your family tree using resources available on the Internet.

Building your family tree has never been easier. With this simple, three-step plan, even beginners can quickly master the basics of family history research. Step 1: Gather the information you already know about yourself and your family using sources you can find at your fingertips--photo albums, school records, letters, birth certificates, and more. Step 2: Organize your discoveries in handy worksheets and the easy-to-use Family Tree Maker software. Step 3: Search for information about your ancestors using tips and tricks practiced by professional genealogists. You'll learn how to use sources like the U.S. federal censuses and discover great ideas for tapping into a wide range of resources on the Internet, from online family trees to message boards and mailing lists.

The process of exploring your family history and roots is a moving and meaningful quest. It affects heart and soul, as well as providing an intellectual challenge to piece all the information together. GROWING YOUR FAMILY TREE is the first book to promote the experiential aspects of family history. It gives sound, practical advice on researching your family history, but also promotes the emotional, spiritual and creative elements of the task, helping to lift genealogy out of its earlier dry an formal setting, into a more meaningful and accessible activity which can enrich a person's identity. Advice and information includes: * How to write up your family history * How to make a heritage corner or trail in your home * A consideration the nature of ancestry, family lines and our inner connection with our ancestors * How to organise your research and keep moving forward

A beginner’s guide to building a website that traces your family’s lineage as a resource for present and future generations, or for finding new relatives. Planting Your Family Tree Online is designed to take you step-by-step through the process of creating a genealogy Web site. When people begin their genealogical adventure, they usually interview elderly members of the family and contact other family members. The next step is usually one of organization of the information collected. The third step is usually to share this information with other family members, traditionally by publishing research in a book. However, a family Web site has numerous advantages: It is interactive so others can contribute their stories and pictures. It will help you find long-lost relatives. It is an ideal way to preserve research for the entire family. It will break down the walls that have stumped you in your research. It recognizes that family research is an ongoing process This book is written by Cyndi Howells, owner and webmaster of Cyndi’s List, a Web site of more than 130,000 online genealogical resources. Cyndi points out, “This book is loaded with URLs to Web sites that will give you everything you need to create a beautiful family tree online.” However, Web site URLs change daily and some may no longer work. She has created web pages as part of Cyndi’s List that correspond to the features of the book so that the URLs will be kept up-to-date.

Many people want to trace their roots and there has never been a better time to do so. However, with so many online resources now available it can be a daunting task for the beginner. This book will go through all the basics from gathering information from relatives and using County Archives, to making use of the best of the internet. It explains in depth how to obtain relevant documents, how to gather clues to further your research and how to do all this in the most economical way. A new addition to the book is how to go about searching American, European and Canadian Records.

Using the three steps explained in the 1-2-3 Family Tree, anyone can master the basics of family history research. Step One explains how to gather information about yourself and your family using "home sources" such as photo albums, school records, letters, birth certificates, and much more. Handy worksheets are included so readers have an easy place to take note of any information they find. Step Two shows how to organize and record discoveries using Family Tree Maker version 16. And finally, Step Three explains how to search for additional records and resources.

This is a step-by-step guide to using the wealth of online records to trace your family tree from your own computer, without the need to travel to national and regional record offices. Whether you are a novice or an experienced genealogist, and whether you plan to devote just a few hours of your time or embark on a life-time hobby, this book will guide you through the mass of records available - birth, marriage and death, the census, and much, much more - so that you can trace your line back hundreds of years. You will also learn how to upload your results to the internet, both to preserve your family's heritage and to connect with relatives, so that you can exchange photos and reminiscences. Contents: Welcome!; 1. What the internet offers the genealogist; 2. How to start; 3. Finding records of birth, marriage and death; 4. Using census records; 5. Other major sources; 6. Military; 7. Wills and where to find them online; 8. Migration; 9. Newspapers; 10. Occupations; 11. The poor and workhouse records; 12. Noble ancestors; 13. Directories; 14. School and university records; 15. Working with the wider context; 16. Family medical history; 17. DNA; 18. Working with names; 19. Recording your family tree; 20. Online recording options; 21. Problems of online trees; 22. Finding living relatives; 23. Genealogical miscellany; 24. Accent and dialect; 25. Final; Key websites; Index