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Here are some interesting genealogy links that can help you get started
in your own genealogy:
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This web site, produced by Gary Parkhurst and his son James, is the home of Peter George Parkhurst,
the Parkhurst family genealogist. Peter can tell you anything about your Parkhurst line and is always
willing to help a fellow researcher. Peter also plays host to yearly Parkhurst family reunions, so
be sure to check this page out!
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This site, hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, contains a huge library
of individuals and families from around the world. It's a great place to start your search, it's
free, and you don't have to be a Mormon to use it :-) It also has the complete catalog of records
that they keep at the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City. You can order these books
and microfilms at local family history centers.
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If you're lucky enough to have ancestors that came from the state of Illinois, this is a great resource! The State
of Illinois has gone all out in putting old records and databases online. It's also really easy, and inexpensive,
to send away for records through their IRAD program.
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RootsWeb was recently taken over by Ancestry.com, but other than removing the California birth index
due to someone complaining about privacy, they've kept it much the same as it was. RootsWeb's
WorldConnect
tree databases are still an amazing repository of genealogical data. You'll be surprised at how many of your
ancestors that you'll find in their databases. Their forums have been incorporated into the Ancestry
forums, but it's actually better that way (more information under one roof).
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No list of genealogy links would be complete without this one, which is itself a collection of links. Cyndi's List contains thousands
of other links based on country, state, county, ethnicity, record type, religion, military, you name it.
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The USGenWeb Project is a group of volunteer genealogists who set up both state and county web
sites containing local history, census records, birth, death, and marriage records, histories,
obituaries, and just lots of other things. Almost every county in the US has it's own web site!
And if your county doesn't, maybe you'd like to volunteer your time to host the site yourself.
While most of the GenWeb sites I've been on have been excellent, one that I'd especially recommend is the
one for DeWitt County, Illinois. This county site,
put on by Earliene Kaelin, has just tons of information on my Smallwood line, including census images,
a database of obituaries, and excerpts from the two DeWitt County history books.
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Although this is a commercial site, they do have some access to free information. However,
if you're not a subscriber, the most beneficial area would have to be the
message boards. There's a separate
forum for almost every state and county in the US, most countries, and a surprising number
of surnames. If you're willing to spend $99 a year on them, you can also access census
images for every census available to date (including the 1930). The indexes are a bit sketchy, though,
and I've noticed that they're missing a few precincts (which can really be annoying). Also, I
personally dislike their image viewer (Mr. Sid). But, it is handy having those images online.
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Yet another commercial site, but again, their GenForums
are free and very useful. I haven't really
done much exploring on this site; Ancestry.com is really the place to go if you want to spend
some money. However, their GenealogyLibrary.com resource is actually pretty good. I received a
free subscription there for three months (which turned into about nine months for some reason;
I didn't complain of course) and found it extremely useful. The last time I checked, they only had the 1850
census images, but it's much better indexed and much easier to use than Ancestry.com. I wish they'd
get all of the census images; if they did, I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. Also, they have a really cool collection of
online genealogy books. I found many of my ancestors mentioned in them. It's pretty reasonably
priced at $49 a year, but I wish they'd get more resources.
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Another really cool site, this is the US Bureau of Land Management's database of land patents. If your
ancestor ever bought a land grant from the US Government between about 1801 and 1909, it's in this
database. They also have scans of the actual images, so it's great for printing up and making copies.
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