Elizabeth Crowe - Genealogy Online

Elizabeth Powell Crowe has been pursuing genealogy for more than 30 years. Her previous editions of Genealogy Online have sold a combined total of nearly 200,000 copies. In the past, she has worked as an editor for numerous genealogy- or technology-related publications, including Computer Currents magazine, Valley Leaves, LeDespencer magazine, and the Computers in Genealogy newsletter, and she contributed articles to Digital Genealogist magazine. Crowe presents and speaks on genealogy throughout the South, when she is not pursuing elusive ancestors. She lives and works in Navarre, Florida.

Copyright 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-184111-5
MHID: 0-07-184111-3

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This book is dedicated to my mother, Frances May Spencer Powell 19262007

PART I
The Basics

PART II
Using the Internet for Genealogy

PART III
The Nitty Gritty: Places to Find Names, Dates, and Places

PART IV
Appendixes

PART I
The Basics

PART II
Using the Internet for Genealogy

PART III
The Nitty Gritty: Places to Find Names, Dates, and Places

Tour

PART IV
Appendixes

As with any book, this one was made possible by those who helped and worked with me. First, I thank each and every person mentioned in this book. The people who graciously granted me interviews, sent me success stories, and shared their expertise with me made this book possible.

Special thanks go to all my genealogy friends on Facebook: Amy Coffin, Bill Ammons, Bill West, Cheryl Rothwell, Cyndi Ingle, Dick Eastman, Elizabeth Shown Mills, Elyse Doerflinger, Jeanne Henry, Judy G. Russell, Leland Meitzeler, Linda Mullikin of the FHGC in Navarre, Kay Rudolph, Lisa B. Lee, Liz Kelley Kerstens, Marian Pierre-Louis, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, Michael John Neill, Myra Vanderpool Gormley, Pat Richley-Erickson, Randy Hooser, Roger Stewart, Romi White, Russ Worthington, Terry Morgan, Thomas MacEntee, and all the rest. Great thanks to all the staff at McGraw-Hill Education. And immense gratitude is due to all my family and friends who were so understanding while I was in writing hibernation and patiently waited for me to emerge.

Most of all, I want to thank my mother, Frances May Spencer Powell, who I know is collaring ancestors in heaven and recording their vital statistics!

More than 20 years ago, my mother asked my brother and me, This Internet thing you all are always talking about: Can it help me with my genealogy?

My brother and I were already deep into online discussion groups about writing (me), archaeology (Bob), music, astronomy (both of us), and other topics.

Immediately after Mother asked, I knew two things: The answer was yes and I would have to write it all down for her. And that is how this book came to be.

The early editions of this book assumed you knew how to do genealogy, but not how to use the Internet. Since that time, commercial online services and the Internet have added, expanded, revised, and changed what they offer, as well as how and when they offer it. From having to use a dial-up connection over a modem in 1992, to cable and satellite connections, to todays iPhone, weve come a long way. Social networking and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messaging make sharing your data easy and almost irresistible. So in this edition, the author assumes you know most Internet technologies and programs and that you want to know how to use them to do your genealogy. Ive gone from a what button to push approach to a why would you want to use that one.

The potential for finding clues, data, and other researchers looking for your same family names has increased exponentially in the last decade. Since 2000, push technology, streaming video, blogs, podcasts, social networking, and indexed document scans have radically changed what can be found on the Internet and how we search for it. If you feel you need formal instruction in researching family history, online courses, from basic self-paced text to college-level instruction, can now make that happen.