Alan E. Mann, A.G.
alan@alanmann.com Accredited
Genealogist
www.alanmann.com/articles/slig.htm 1 December, 2002
Salt Lake
Institute of Genealogy January 2003
Greater Research Success Using Technology Sources
Place-based Searching
There’s more than one way to
find useful information on the Internet. While a name approach may be the first
thing we try, searching by place (locality) is more common for the experienced
researcher. While the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) has a surname
section as well as a locality section, the FHLC has many of us in the habit of
thinking by locality first. Once we focus on a locality, we may still end up
looking for a surname (we usually do), but the first focus is the place.
There
are some great resources for finding things according to the place your
ancestors lived. Most are within the www.worldgenweb.org
site, or the original site, www.usgenweb.org
for the
Other place-based organizational tools include Roots
Location List (RLL) (http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/Genea/rll)
and comprehensive web sites. Use RLL to search by place to find others
working in the same area. Use a comprehensive web site to see a list of things
on the Internet for the place your ancestor came form. The most used of these
sites include: www.cyndislist.com, www.genealogy.com/links/, and www.familysearch.org/Browse. While these are extensive lists, they’re
only a small part of the web. There’s never been a comprehensive list of sites
close to being a catalog.
WorldGenWeb
The first effort to organize
this for all localities in the whole world was WorldGenWeb
at www.worldgenweb.org/. WorldGenWeb divides
the world into regions represented on a map (see at left)
Each of these attempts to
list what is available on the web for all places in their region. The two best
established are UKGenWeb and USGenWeb.
Let’s look briefly at these two services.
BritishIslesGenWeb
UKGenWeb, at www.britishislesgenweb.org/, has info for each country and county:
ü county
selection chart and/or map showing
the counties of the country, with a link to the county page and the email
address of the page maintainer
ü surname
lists of names researched by
registered individuals (members’ interests)
ü mailing list for those interested in the county (distributed
messages by email)
ü querypage for queries
about ancestors; to add yours or read those left by others)
ü lookups where volunteers offer to look up something in a
reference book or resource. The lookup page lists the resource and the
volunteer’s email address.
County pages and surname
lists were already being done by GENUKI (GENealogy of the
For example, a record of an
A record of a will proved in
the Bishop’s court (covers only one county) is listed under
while a record of marriages in a single church would be
listed under
For more information about
GENUKI and other English Internet sites, see www.alanmann.com/class/files/England.htm and www.alanmann.com/class/index.htm.
USGenWeb
The USGenWeb
Project (www.usgenweb.org)
requires a web site for each state and separate pages for each county within a
state. The project is completed, but remains fluid as some of the thousands of
volunteers resign or are unable to continue. The boon to genealogy researchers
is an easy way to find what’s available for the places your ancestors lived.
Each page is required to follow guidelines, which mandate what each state must
have. These include many of the same things as UKGenWeb
(above), plus
ü state
resource page provides some basic
research help for the state or county, including names & addresses of
societies, archives, and libraries for the state
ü Archives is where files
of extracted records are stored--typically maps, Bible records, marriage or
church records, censuses, cemetery headstones, histories, or other records. The
archives searches are at searches.rootsweb.com/htdig/search.html for national search
& at www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ussearch.htm for
state by state searches.
USGenWeb county pages often include Biographies, Obituaries,
Genealogies, and Bible records. USGenWeb also
spearheads efforts to transcribe and other special projects. For some good USGenWeb examples, take a look at:
1.
The
2.
The Kentucky
page (note biographies and vital records online)
3.
The Iowa site
is another good state site (check out
4.
The Clark county, Indiana section.
The format to go directly to
any state USGenWeb page is to use the web address of
www.usgenweb.org/XX where XX is the two letter abbreviation for the state
desired. You will probably find references to online resources you didn’t know
about, and the query and other databases available may provide you with more
information about your family. Take some time -- it’s
well worth it.
FamilySearch
Internet Browse Categories
The new FamilySearch Internet
Genealogy Service (www.familysearch.org) includes a “browse
categories” option. This section attempts to categorize the content of the web
by place and topic. Like GenUKI, it uses the Family
History Library Catalog as a model, with some additional topics (such as web
hosting or genealogy vendors) as categories.
Web pages listed are examined
by volunteers, who identify the places and topics for each web page. The site
groups one hundred (or so) FHLC topics into 16 general categories, namely:
|
Census and Lists |
Libraries |
Royalty and Nobility |
|
Court and Legal Records |
Migration |
Services and Tools |
|
Cultural and Religious
Groups |
Military |
Surnames and Family Organizations |
|
Family Histories and
Genealogies |
Places |
|
|
Key Genealogical Sites |
Record Keepers |
Vital Records |
|
Land and Property |
Research Support |
|
Each general category
contains records for each of the topics within that category. For example, the
general category Vital Records includes the FHLC topics Bible Records,
Cemeteries, Church Records, Civil Registration, Divorce Records, Funeral Homes,
Obituaries, and Vital Records as well as a link to the International
Genealogical Index.
Because each page has to be
reviewed by a volunteer, not all pages on the web are listed. However, the site
lists nearly two hundred thousand web pages and continues to grow daily. You
can help this project by using the “Add-a-Site” feature to recommend useful web
pages you know of that aren’t currently listed. The main advantage of “Search
Web Sites” is that the keyword search is a full text search (not just a
description or header search like Cyndi’s List).
Summary
WorldGenWeb, USGenWeb, and GENUKI are
examples of useful aids for a locality catalog approach to the Internet. They
are not all inclusive–they do miss some things. Another way to find useful
information by locality is to use a list of links to web sites in categories.
The largest, most used genealogy web sites are often categorized lists whose
categories include localities (geographic areas). The following web sites have
geographic categories for the whole world, but those for the states within the
Ø Cyndi’s List (www.cyndislist.com/xx.html)
Ø Genealogy Site Finder (www.genealogy.com/links/)
Ø Fuller’s Genealogy Resources on Internet
(www-personal.umich.edu/~cgaunt/yyyy.html)
Ø Everton (www.everton.com/usa/xx.htm)
Ø Lineages American Reading Rooms (www.lineages.com/usa/state.asp?StateCode=XX)
Ø RootsWeb
Ø USGenWeb
(www.usgenweb.org/XX)
In these examples, just
replace the xx with the two letter abbreviation for the state you want (use
upper- or lower-case as shown), or replace the yyyy
with the name of the state spelled out. For example, if you want
The above bulleted sites are
useful in taking a locality approach to finding useful information. These sites
are usually enough to help you find what’s available for your locality of
interest.
USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb are
ongoing, growing projects. As more people help and as time allows for continued
improvements, these sites will improve and expand. You can do your part to help
them develop by doing one or more of the following:
1. Tell others about these sites and how to use them. The
more people use them, the more successful they are likely to be (and the more
people will do something on this list).
2.
Volunteer to
help. Each of these projects are created & maintained by volunteers. They
always need new helpers to replace those that burn out, retire, or can no
longer help.
3.
Look at their web
pages. If you know of something useful on the web for that locality that they
don’t show, let them know (email links usually appear on most pages).
4.
See how their web
pages can help you. If you can think of a better way, or something that is
missing, let them know. Everyone benefits if the idea truly is an improvement.
5.
Work on an
extraction or other project, then see that the
resulting data is made available to their site in the proper place.
6.
Offer to do
lookups for something specific to which you have easy access.
7.
Leave a query
about your ancestor. More queries means more chances for success.
Remember, you can be an participant in the web. If something out there is less
than you think it should be, maybe you can help improve it. Also, don’t overlook finding things by time
period within a locality. For example, see www.geocities.com/Heartland/6266/colonial.htm
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©Copyright 1997-2003
by Alan E. Mann. All rights
reserved. Written permission to
reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any format, including photocopying,
data retrieval or the Internet, must be secured in advance from the copyright
holder.