Following are our favorite genealogical resources on the Web (note: sites were suggested by members of the Mt. Lebanon Genealogy Society. This page is not intended to be another Cyndi's List (see below), but to indicate pages with which we've had some success in our search for ancestors) .
We've divided the pages into the following categories:
The Big Three genealogy sites
Information for beginners
Immigration
Census
Searching by location (includes western Pennsylvania) and Maps
Digital Archives (online images of original documents)
Ethnic genealogy (German, Italian, etc)
Searching by surname
Genealogical lookup sites
General search sites
Miscellaneous sites (Social Security Death Index, National Archives)
Commercial sites
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The Big Three, the most extensive sites, are
Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet, which will lead you to thousands more genealogy sites: www.cyndislist.com
Rootsweb www.rootsweb.com
Ancestry www.ancestry.com
Other sites of interest:
Are you just beginning your work in genealogy?
Rootsweb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees, www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide, is a collection of interactive online genealogy lessons.
More how-to is posted at Genealogy Today www.genealogytoday.com and at Ancestry.com's learning page www.ancestry.com/learn/start/main.htm.
Ancestors, www.pbs.org/kbyu/ancestors, is the companion web site to the PBS family history and genealogy television series.
You can print out various charts from the Ancestry.com website www.ancestry.com/save/charts/ancchart.htm
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Immigration web sites:
At the online passenger lists at Ellis Island, the American Family Immigration History Center, www.ellisislandrecords.org, you might be able to find the name of an ancestor who immigrated between 1892 and 1924. Also see Stephen Morse's page, Searching the Ellis Island Database in One Step, http://stevemorse.org/index.html , which allows you to search the Ellis Island site by first letter of name or by boat.
The Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild, www.immigrantships.net, posts passenger lists of immigrants to the US from the 1600s onward. It's constantly being updated.
Link to Your Roots, www.linktoyourroots.hamburg.de/index contains names of Hamburg emigrants from Hamburg. When finished, the project will have names of emigrants from 1850 throuth 1934.
Census information
The 1930 US census became available to the public in April 2002. The National Archives has information about it at www.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html
Megan Smolenyak's article Locating Ancestors in the 1930 Census is a good overview of the challenges involved.
The 1930 Census is mostly not indexed by name. If your ancestors lived in a large city, you'll have to find their address and Enumeration District.
You can read a list of the circa 1930 city directories available at the National Archives at www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/population/1930/1930-city-directory.ht.... The Family History Library (locally, in Greentree) may have city directories on microfilm for you to borrow.
Stephen Morse's page Obtaining EDs for the 1930 Census in One Step (Large Cities) may be of help to you in locating enumeration districts.
The page Census Data for the year 1930 summarizes some of the data collected in the census.
Members of the Mt. Lebanon Genealogy Society have transcribed the 1920 U. S. Census for Mt. Lebanon Township. This transcription is at www.us-census.org/inventory/pennsylvania.htm. A paper copy of this census is on file at the reference desk of the Mt. Lebanon Library. Mt. Lebanon Township was composed of three Enumeration Districts in 1920: ED 257, ED 887 and ED 888.
The 1890 Census Substitute can be found at www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/census/1890sub/main.htm (most data available to paid subscribers only). "When a basement fire in the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C. destroyed most of the 1890 federal census, a valuable source of information was lost to researchers of America's past. Ancestry.com, with the aid of the National Archives and Records Administration and the Allen County Public Library, now provides the first definitive online substitute for the missing census. More than 20 million records have been identified for inclusion in the collection and additions will be made regularly as they become available for posting. It will include fragments of the original 1890 census that survived the fire, special veterans schedules, several Native American tribe censuses for years surrounding 1890, state censuses (1885 or 1895), city and county directories, alumni directories, and voter registration documents."
The 1880 Census has been transcribed by the Mormons. You can access it at www.familysearch.org
The Historic Pittsburgh Census Project at digital.library.pitt.edu/census/census_name.html allows users to search the U.S. Census Schedules for the city of Pittsburgh from the years 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 and for Allegheny City from the years 1850, 1860, and 1870.
You can see all of the US census forms, from 1850 to 1990, along with the questions asked, at http://www.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumForm.html
There are links to online census transcriptions nationwide at www.us-census.org, www.rootsweb.com/~census, and www.census-online.com
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Searching by location
Allegheny County Tombstone Inscriptions, at Norm Meinert's page freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~njm1/tombs.htm, is organized by cemetery. The page also includes a few cemeteries from Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Venango and Westmoreland Counties. "Many of my postings have been contributed to me via volunteers who have offered to go out and collect Tombstone Inscription information. My wife and I have collected many inscriptions ourselves, and along the way others have jumped in to volunteer to help."
An extensive listing of Western Pennsylvania Civil War resources is at www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jw3u/round/table.htm.
Man of the Cloth, a roster of information on pastors, preachers, priests, ministers, and missionaries in western Pennsylvania, is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~papastor
The LDS Internet Genealogy Service www.familysearch.org has the (Mormon) Family History Library's card catalog, which lists microfilms containing country, state, county, and city records.
USGenWeb Archives www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb has data posted by state and county. Some of the data categories are marriages, census, cemetery listings, newspapers, tax lists.
USGenWeb page for your state or county of interest: www.usgenweb.org
The State Vital Records Page www.vitalrec.com contains information about how to obtain birth, marriage, and death records from each state, territory, and county of the United States.
FamilyHistory.com Message Boards www.familyhistory.com cover many countries of the world.
The Bureau of Land Management - Eastern States, General Land Office, www.glorecords.blm.gov. Here you can find information on land patent applications for Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin and several western states. You can also see digital images of these applications.
The United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Information Server geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic allows you to search for place names throughout the entire United States, including populated places, creeks, some cemeteries, etc. By entering a town name, you can learn what county and/or state[s] it is in.
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Maps
Mapquest, at www.mapquest.com/maps, generates maps from all over the world.
The USGenWeb Archives United States Digital Map Library, www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps, contains historical maps for states, counties, and other geographical divisions in the United States.
The 1895 U.S. ATLAS SITE, www.livgenmi.com/1895.htm, is a completely scanned 1895 U.S. atlas, with index.
Go to the map section of Cyndi's List www.cyndislist.com/maps.htm to find an extensive listing of maps that are on the Web. Among these you'll find the 1900s panoramic maps that are at the Library of Congress. The following email is also from the Library of Congress.
"Historical Maps Available for Family Genealogists
This letter is sent in order to inform you that we have Austria- Hungary and other maps showing villages in Central and Eastern Europe, including the area of Pod-Karpatska Rus that the ancestors of many of us once inhabited. Copies are available to the public either free of charge or at a nominal cost. This should be of special interest to your readers who are doing genealogical research. Those interested are urged to write or e-mail including the names of the villages from which their ancestors emigrated. Any accompanying information, such as what country the village presently lies in, would also be helpful. We will then do our best to provide copies of maps to them.
Mailing address: Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540; Attn: Dr. Stephen Paczolt
E-mail address: maps@loc.gov
Please remember to include your home mailing address in e-mail inquiries."
Topozone www.topozone.com has topographic maps of the United States.
UK Streetmaps, www.streetmap.co.uk, has street and road maps for all of mainland Britain.
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Digital Archives (online images of original documents)
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Online Digital Archives, www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us, is currently displaying information records about the Revolutionary War, World War I and the Spanish American War, with plans for much more.
The Library of Virginia www.lva.lib.va.us has a digital collection of colonial record images (including land patents and bible records).
The Digital Archive at the University of Pittsburgh digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh has digital editions of many volumes on the history of Western Pennsylvania.
The Making of America, cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa, is "a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." Among the books which are searchable by any word are The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
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Some ethnic genealogy pages:
BRITISH ISLES: Find birth, marriage, and death Records in England and Wales at freebmd.rootsweb.com.
Also see GENUKI at www.genuki.org.uk.
Check out Irish Place Names, scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/placenames/index.cfm, an online searchable version of the 1851 General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns, parishes and Baronies of Ireland.
GERMAN: Internet Sources of German Genealogy www.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/edatbase.htm and Genealogy.net www.genealogy.net are two huge sites devoted to German Genealogy.
ITALIAN: The Cimorelli Site www.cimorelli.com/pie/default.htm
POLISH: The Polish Genealogy Project polishproject.hypermart.net
HUNGARIAN: The Hungarian site: www.horlacher.org/hungary/index.html
Information on Hungarian censuses from the 1800s can be found at www.horlacher.org/hungary/huncen.htm
Look for Hungarian maps at lazarus.elte.hu/gb/maps.htm
SLOVAK and CZECH: It's all Relative www.iarelative.com
. . . More Slovak links
Eastern European: FEEFHS (Federation of Eastern European Family History Societies) feefhs.org
The Jewishgen site www.jewishgen.org site may be helpful no matter what your origins.
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Searching by surname
The LDS Internet Genealogy Service www.familysearch.org has the (Mormon) Family History Library's card catalog, Ancestral File, International Genealogical Index, and more.
There are mailing lists devoted to surnames, geographical areas both in the US and other countries, and other topics related to genealogy at www.rootsweb.com/~maillist and www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail.html.
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A few surname search pages:
RootsWeb Surname Page rsl.rootsweb.com
Genforum's Surname Forums genforum.genealogy.com/surnames
The Guild of One-Name Studies www.one-name.org
GeneaNet www.geneanet.org. Mostly European names.
SurnameSearch, surnamesearch.com, is a site containing many genealogy surname search engines.
Genealogy Lookup Sites
Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness www.raogk.org "volunteers have agreed at least once per month to videotape cemeteries or visit county courthouses or archives in their specified area. The cost to you would be reimbursing the volunteer for his expenses in fulfilling your request (videotape, copy fees, etc.)."
AncestralFindings.com www.ancestralfindings.com allows you one lookup request per day from record types such as births, deaths, marriages, land records, state records, census records, and passenger records.
General Searches
Google google.com is our favorite overall search engine.
For other search engines, go to the EINetwork's page www.einetwork.net/ein/searchint.html . You'll find several good ones.
Some newer search engines on which we've found family information: alltheweb.com, dogpile.com, teoma.com, webbrain.com, wisenut.com, and the metasearch engines queryserver.com, metaeureka.com, dogpile.com, searchwhip.com, zworks.com, and researchville.com
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Miscellaneous pages
Homer James' Medieval Genealogy Reference page is at home.adelphia.net/~hbjames/genealogical_references.htm
The Social Security Death Index is at ssdi.rootsweb.com
Information about genealogical research in the National Archives: www.nara.gov
Some commercial sites (these may charge for some services):
Ancestry www.ancestry.com. Free database searches; Social Security Death Index; subscription databases.
Heritage Quest www.heritagequest.com is one source of genealogical data CDs.
Family Tree Maker online www.familytreemaker.com. Search the Family Finder Index online.
Kindred Konnections www.kindredkonnections.com
Everton Publishers www.everton.com
Sources for local and family histories:
Higginson Book Company www.higginsonbooks.com
The Heritage Book News www.heritagebooks.com
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