Helm April - Genealogy For Dummies

Genealogy For Dummies, 8th Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943305

ISBN 978-1-119-41196-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-41197-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-41198-7 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

There could be any number of reasons that you picked up this book. Maybe youve become curious about genealogy after watching a television show. Perhaps youve always been interested, but you didnt have the time to pursue it until now. Possibly, youre a student with a project to complete on your family history. No matter what the reason, you probably need some help getting started, and were here to help!

The amount of available family history resources has skyrocketed in the 19 years since we wrote the first edition of this book (boy, are we getting old!). This is an exciting time because scanned images of key records are coming online at an unprecedented rate. Also, technologies such as DNA testing have been refined and are now invaluable tools that complement evidence from paper records.

Although the technology and amount of material available has changed over the years, you still need a solid foundation for your research. Weve written Genealogy For Dummies to give you the necessary resources and advice to balance online sources and DNA evidence with traditional research to ensure you are successful every step of the way.

If youre a repeat reader of Genealogy For Dummies (previous editions were known as Genealogy Online For Dummies), we think youll be pleased to find all sorts of new and updated information, including how to use social networking for family history purposes and expanded coverage of DNA testing methods. And, if youre brand new to genealogy, we think youll be equally pleased with the easy-to-understand directions and information about the resources that await you.

At this point, we feel obligated to give you a couple of warnings or reminders. First, genealogy is an addictive pursuit and a long journey. You might find yourself staying up all hours of the night chasing down that elusive ancestor. Please dont blame us if you start falling asleep at work due to your genealogical research routine. Also, on a more serious note, keep in mind that online research and DNA testing are merely two tools among others for finding information about your family. To thoroughly research your genealogy, you must use a number of tools many of which we talk about throughout this book.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, put the kids to bed, let your pets out, and boot up that computer. Your ancestors are just waiting to be found!

If you type in the word genealogy into a popular search engine like Google, youll see millions upon millions of pages that mention the subject. In fact, at the time we wrote this, such a search returned 151,000,000 results. With so many choices, its impossible to know where to start without a map. Thats what this book is all about. Although we dont cover every available resource, we do point you toward the sites and technologies that give you the best chance for researching many different family lines.

Youre probably asking yourself how this book differs from the many other genealogy books on the shelf. Some books tell you only the traditional methods of genealogical research that have you traveling hundreds of miles to visit courthouses and archives in other states. Unfortunately, these books neglect the many opportunities that online research and new technologies provide. Other books that do cover online genealogy tend to group resources by how users access them (all link-based sites are listed together, all subscription sites are listed together, and so on), rather than telling you how you can integrate the many online resources to achieve your genealogical goal. As genealogists, we understand that researchers dont conduct searches by trying all the link sites, then all the subscription sites. We search by looking for people or places anywhere we can find.

Web addresses (or URLs) throughout the book are in a