Resources

If you have a recommended addition, please contact me. – Greg

Free Search Services

Family Search

This free site is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is the largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world. Check out their free research pilot.

RootsWeb.com

RootsWeb.com is a free Internet service owned and operated by MyFamily.com, Inc. It contains millions of records and access to thousands of family trees including mine.

Gone But Not Forgotten (BGNF)

A free collection of gedcom files with indexes.

Census Online

Over the past eight years, Census Online has grown from 25 links to nearly 40,000 and serves as the internet’s primary starting point for locating online census transcriptions.

Fee-based Search Services

Ancestry.com

With more than 3 billion names and 4,000 searchable databases, Ancestry.com is the #1 online source for family history information, including the web’s largest collection of historical records. They also offer a free trial period so you can check to see if it suits your needs.

Genealogy.com

Few other family history sites are as trusted or as visited as Genealogy.com, which offers a wide range of family and local histories, vital records, military records and much more.

Free Specific Resources

OregonPioneers.com

Stephenie Flora’s excellent collection of names, dates, and much more pertaining to the early days of Oregon and the Oregon Territory. Extensive.

Helm Family Research

Search for the Parents of the North Carolina Helms Brothers (1690-1750) by Ira L. Helms, Jr.

Huddleston Family Tree

Blood ancestry of my wife, Carol Hurd Bennette.

Joseph Bennette Ancestry on Rootsweb

I do my best to keep this database up to date.

Tennessee Genealogy and History

Part of the USGENWEB project. Great resource if your family lines go through Tennessee as mine do.

Illinois State Archives

A searchable repository of all vital records from 1763 to the present.

Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850.

Excellent resource for finding those pre-1850 marriages.

Missouri Marriage Records

These Missouri marriage records were submitted by GeneaLinks visitors. While they are not official proof of the marriage, they do provide a place to start looking for the official records. Some records do not have an email address. Many visitors submit those extra records they wrote down just in case they might need them later. In those cases, they do not have further information about the marriage.

MySA.com Obituaries

A resource for finding obituaries in Texas – mostly the San Antonio area. Very limited resource.

Union County, South Carolina Probate Record Index 1787-1865

Index of Probate Records in the Union County, South Carolina Courthouse, 1782-1865. Very limited resource.

Software

Roots Magic (ver. 4)

Great software, good support, easy to use, great feature set. This is MY software choice. Price: $30.

Rootsmagic Essentials

NEW – includes far more features than Personal Ancestry File (the other free software choice in this list) for beginners and those on a VERY tight budget. Click here for more details. $0

FamilyTree Maker

Great software with excellent support. I found the interface unintuitive and a bit difficult to navigate. Feature rich with full integration into Ancestry.com. A bit pricey in comparison to other choices. Price: $40

Legacy Family Tree

It looks good and I’ve heard good things about it. A free version is also available that lacks some features of the full product. Price: $30

GenCircles.com

Includes The Global Tree, an ambitious project to build a searchable database of genealogical data. This unique service offers their “SmartMatching” technology that matches your data with others automatically. I don’t like their marketing approach in which they offer a “free” service that matches yours with other databases, but insist you purchase their product in order to view matches. Price: $30.

Personal Ancestral File (PAF)

Very simplistic, somewhat difficult to use, but, hey – you can’t beat the price. Price: $0

More Resources

Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet

Comprehensive links to EVERYWHERE genealogical on the internet. You could spend hours on this site alone. Great resource.

Tips – My list of favorite tips for beginning researchers. This list will grow over time as I add more resources.