Jonathan Scott - The Family History Web Directory: The Genealogical Websites You Cant Do Without

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Pen & Sword Family History
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS Copyright Jonathan Scott 2015 ISBN: 978 1 47383 799 7
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 417 6
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 416 9
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 415 2 The right of Jonathan Scott to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset in 10pt Palatino by Mac Style Ltd, Bridlington, East Yorkshire
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, and Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe. For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail:
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Good gracious a Darracq! For Genevieve CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I ve been writing about genealogical websites since the tail end of the 1990s. As the fresh-faced assistant editor at Family History Monthly, it was my duty to check and polish the Web Wise column.

This was always a highlight of the working week, as it meant going up to the third floor the location of the one computer in the building with dial-up Internet access. Today I have my very own computer, with which I continue to visit genealogical websites, from one-man labours of love to global behemoths. Over the years, the market leaders have taken on personalities for me. I see Ancestry as an eager know-it-all with all the latest gadgets. Genuki is a grand but faded uncle with a pencil moustache. The Genealogist is an intrepid explorer with obscure and surprising knowledge.

My Heritage is a charming but overbearing American with a distressingly firm handshake. The National Archives is a raconteur, unaware of her beguiling beauty. And Family Search is a matronly aunt with an encyclopaedic memory. To help you get the best from this cast of characters, and their lesser-known cousins, theres a filing system at work in this book. Each chapter lists websites broadly in order of importance, interest and usefulness. The idea being that for those just starting their research into a particular branch or topic, this will lead them quickly to the best or most interesting resources.

Then in the index at the back, all the websites appear again, often more than once, but listed this time alphabetically by title, content or subject. Each entry runs as follows: title, address, description (if warranted). In many cases the address and title tell the whole story, so further explanation is superfluous. Some have names and addresses that obviously relate to the subject of a chapter, but where this isnt the case, more information has been added to the titles to make their relevance clear. At other times the title I have chosen will be the content of a specific page, rather than the parent website. For example, perhaps we stumble upon a website called Aunty Ems Remembrances, but within this we find a surname index to Argyll newspapers between 1869 and 1901.

In such a case the websites title is Argyll newspaper index, 18691901. Finally, with sites that appear frequently, I list both the specific page and parent. So a National Archives guide to researching coalminers becomes: Coalminers research guide, The National Archives. Fans of the old www or http prefixes may notice their absence from the majority of web addresses in this book. This is because most websites no longer need them to function properly. I have included them where required.

Web addresses change frequently. With so many websites listed, inevitably some will slip out of date. If you find a dead link, enter the title of the webpage, or the address itself, into your search engine of choice and hopefully youll find it soon enough. If the website has completely disappeared you can try typing the address into the Internet Archives Wayback Machine (archive.org). My only other piece of advice is this: make notes, either digital or physical. If you dont leave a trail of breadcrumbs, sooner or later youll end up going round in circles.

I really hope you find this book useful. If you want to praise or complain you can find me on Twitter: @thejonoscott. Section 1 FIRST STEPS 1.1 Getting Started T heres lots of help and guidance for budding researchers. Key lessons that come up again and again include: start from what you know, never assume and write it down. This chapter covers some of best how to guides, plus the most useful starting points for first-steps research. FamilySearch familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page The sheer wealth of information available through FamilySearch means that while the homepage is ever being simplified and streamlined, the experience can still feel overwhelming especially if you have a common surname.

For that reason I recommend a little background reading via the above Research Wiki. Then you can click on the homepage, register, and begin recording what you know; or you can go straight to search, and trawl the vast quantities of free census or parish data. Theres also this getting started page: familysearch.org/ask/gettingstarted. The National Archives nationalarchives.gov.uk Click on Find Guidance > Looking for a Person, and youre presented with the A-Z of TNA research guides. If you already know enough about your family to choose a relevant guide such as an occupation perhaps theyre a great route to quickly understanding what information you will need to confirm before you can find out more. Why the Census is Helpful, Findmypast findmypast.co.uk/content/expert-searching-census All commercial websites have getting started guides usually weighted towards persuading you to peruse their own collections or use their online tree builders. Why the Census is Helpful, Findmypast findmypast.co.uk/content/expert-searching-census All commercial websites have getting started guides usually weighted towards persuading you to peruse their own collections or use their online tree builders.

But theres still useful information and guidance to be had this Findmypast page is a clear and simple introduction to understanding the census. UK BMD ukbmd.org.uk Excellent hub to online transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses, plus other indexes/transcriptions of parish material, wills, MIs, and so on. Click on Local BMD, for example, and there are links to all county websites offering online transcribed indexes to the original GRP records held by the local register offices. ScotlandsPeople scotlandspeople.gov.uk Click the Help and Resources tab and choose Getting Started to read a tailored guide to Scottish research. The site itself hosts BMD indexes, parish records and census records, plus other material held by The National Archives of Scotland. FreeBMD freebmd.org.uk When starting out, its likely that you will be attempting to fix information about life events of the recent past. FreeBMD freebmd.org.uk When starting out, its likely that you will be attempting to fix information about life events of the recent past.