Some valuable...

Search Links and Tips

Below you will find some valuable links both for the beginner and the experienced. I have not tried to be exhaustive. (You will find a few links to sites that already are exhaustive.) What I have tried to do is...
give a good basic foundation to the novice;

provide enough links to keep any researcher going; and

include links that give valuable research and organizational tips.

Because it is easy to get "lost" on the web you may want to bookmark this page before you begin your trip! You are also encouraged to read over each of the first twenty-one listings and their brief descriptions before you start.

Genealogy is one of the most popular and fastest growing hobbies in the nation. Once you get started you'll understand why. It can become a very consuming hobby and you will often feel like a detective or a treasure hunter as you piece together the puzzles of your ancestry. As you work, your respect and admiration will grow for your ancestors and the trials and successes they had. As they built their life they laid the foundation that made your life possible.

Another thing that you will find is that it can become expensive. There are many sites, people, and places that will be only too willing to take your money. You may (or may not!) have to work a little harder, but many of the things you pay for can be found for FREE! Another way to cut costs is to share. Join mailing lists (for free) to find people that are researching the same ancestors and share costs and information. Additionally many people (like me :o)) publish their information online and invite you to contact them if you think you "link" to a common ancestor, so search those genealogy sites. Save where you can and maybe you can take a trip to an ancestral home and do your own original research. That is my dream and goal!

If there is a resource not listed here that has proven valuable to you or if you find a broken link or want to voice an opinion... PLEASE e-mail me! Thank you, and happy hunting!

Familysearch.org: How Do I Begin? Five basic simple steps are outlined here to get you started in an efficient way. You will also find FREE forms to print up on your computer. On this site you can also find...

A genealogy program that you can download for FREE! Download your choice of PAF version 5.1-Multi Language, 4.0.4-Multi Language, 3.01M Upgrade, or PAF 5.0 evaluation version. Easy to use with many great features and at the right price. :o)

Genealogy.com: Organizing Your Research. Diana Smith, in her article "Organizing Your Research," says, "Although these methods have been tried over many years of genealogical research, it is important to realize that not all methods work for everyone." The important thing is to keep records as Kory Meyerink, MLS, CG tells us in Why Bother? The Value of Documentation in Family History. You will also find links to other good resources and articles on these pages.

Read this before you start... Twenty Ways to Avoid Genealogical Grief You won't be sorry!

Robert Bickham's 26 Tips "These hints will help you get started becoming a genealogist! These are a few suggestions that I have that will not only get you started, but bond you closer to your relatives and future generations." Be sure to visit this site. You can also download a copy of this file in text form at this site.

Richard Pence's article on Numbering Systems in Genealogy This article will help you to choose the genealogical numbering system that will work best for you. Make a wise choice now so you won't feel a need to change later. [I find this one of the most difficult parts of genealogy because some of the systems that seem to be the most thorough are the most confusing. There does not seem to be one way that is the best.]

Treasure Maps A great "how to" site with lots of helpful links including Five steps to Getting Started on your Family History and an outstanding Tutorial on the U.S. Federal Census by Judy Hanna Green. Treasure Maps also has a great FREE monthly email newsletter now in its sixth year that you can sign up for. Site author Robert Ragan has also published "Search Engine Secrets Made Easy for Genealogy Researchers" guide that you can purchase on his site. The guide isn't free, but it can help you find information for free. This site also has an article on deciphering old handwriting and two on tombstone rubbings.

RootsWeb Guide from rootsweb.com... here you will find lots of links to help you in your research. I found their "Where to Begin?" a little too overwhelming for someone who is a true beginner. The others links for beginners above from familysearch.com and Treasure Maps are easier to follow and understand.

familysearch.com FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service. Ancestor Search searches: Ancestral File, International Genealogical Index, and web sites (by last name only). You can search for your ancestors and collaborate with others who are climbing the same family tree. To add a web site to FamilySearch Internet, email others through family history mailing lists, or preserve your genealogy, you need to be a registered user. (It's FREE.)

The USGenWeb Project Help for Researchers is a great resource. You will find links for beginners as well as advanced advice and links to sites that can help with more specialized research. It also includes links to such things as information about caring for old documents, repairing old books, preserving old photographs, etc. There are links here to forms you can print up for FREE to use in your research and record keeping. Common Mistakes is another helpful link on this site.

Addresses for Vital Records Here, in one location are the addresses for each state and county that you will need in order to request vital records such as birth, death and marriage certificates.

Rootsweb "The Internet's oldest and largest FREE genealogy community. Hundreds of gigabytes (millions of pages) of FREE genealogy data, with more added every day. Subscribe for FREE to the RootsWeb Review and Missing Links, the largest genealogy publications in the world -- each with more than 366,000 readers. Home of the RootsWeb Surname List." Also home to...

User Mailing Lists Hosted by Rootsweb "Mailing lists are remarkably simple beasties: you send a piece of e-mail to the list's address, and the list retransmits that message to everyone who is subscribed. You must be a subscriber to post to any list hosted by rootsweb EXCEPT for ROOTS-L."

Sign up for Roots-L Mailing List. "ROOTS-L is a mailing list for people who are interested in genealogy. It's not the only one, there are many other genealogical mailing lists. ROOTS-L is the original Internet genealogical mailing list (founded 1987)."

The USGenWeb Project This is the home page for The USGenWeb Project. "We are a group of volunteers working together to provide Internet websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States. This Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free access for everyone." A great site with lots of information for tracing your family tree and lots of opportunities for helping the cause.

The WorldGenWeb Project "Another important genealogical undertaking: The WorldGenWeb Project has the objective of placing genealogical information for every country in the world, and every region within each country, online. If you are researching your emigrant ancestors, then this is a must-see website." Ditto.

Helm's Genealogy Toolbox "The Genealogy Toolbox, established in February 1995, consists of seven sites designed to provide the tools necessary for genealogists to use the Internet to discover their family's history. Resources on the Genealogy Toolbox include a list of over 70,000 links to genealogical resources on the Internet, informative news and articles on family history research, a guide to genealogical software, pages for posting research questions (now containing over 100,000 queries), a genealogical bookstore, and a site to register your genealogical home page with several Internet genealogy indexes." I find over 70,000 links a bit overwhelming to sort through, but between this site and the next one, Cyndi's List, you should be able to find what you are looking for if it is on the Internet.

Cyndi's List Another exhaustive list. Probably one of the most popular and well known lists on the Internet.

FREE! Online Genealogy Classes This list includes this class, Beginning Genealogy. Learn how to do your own family history from the very start. "This course is designed as a special interest course and will take the beginning genealogist through the steps from 'the bushel basket system' all the way to being able to computerize his genealogy and organize it for posterity. We will discuss family records, local, state and federal records, church records, census records, land and probates, school records, immigration and naturalization records and miscellaneous records that are hard to find. We will utilize online resources as much as possible and will 'hopefully' put together a four generation pedigree charts with accompanying group sheets by the conclusion of class. Be prepared! You may find more than you expect!" Enjoyable and fun, you'll learn about the history of your family in relationship to the events that happened around them.

Introduction to Genealogy This course is offered by the National Genealogical Society (NGS). "[It] is an online course for those who have done little, if any, research on their families. It is open to anyone who wishes to enroll. Members of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) receive a tuition discount. Students will learn how to: record genealogical information; get started with information in family and published sources; find twentieth-century vital records; find birth, death, and marriage information for ancestors who lived in earlier centuries; use online finding aids and library catalogs; and write source citations for birth, death, and marriage information. The National Genealogical Society is an accredited distance education institution, and this course has been approved by the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council." NGS also offers American Genealogy: A Basic Course, "a unique educational opportunity to take a genealogy course at home. The course� is designed for all family historians wanting to research their ancestors more effectively and efficiently. Sixteen lessons provide an introduction to each of the major record groups used in American genealogical research and require 'hands-on' experience. Students are given instruction in basic record keeping, source documentation, and evaluation of evidence."

GEDClean32 Home Page "If you share genealogical data with other people, you very often save it in GEDCOM format so that other people or programs can use it. But if you are sharing it with strangers, especially if you are putting it on the web, you will probably make your living relatives very unhappy if you include personal details about them. GEDClean32 is the industry-leading program which automates the task of "cleaning" the personal information about living individuals from a GEDCOM file containing genealogical data."

More...?

The Dickey Boards at RootsWeb

[Please Note: The Boards don't seem to work the way they once did. A more profitable link for now might be the Dickey at RootsWeb page. Here you can begin a search, add a link, join a mailing list, and more. At one time each of the different boards linked to a unique site for posting deeds, wills, obits, etc. They don't seem to anymore or they are more confusing. I am still trying to figure it out. Meanwhile, I will leave them here for a bit to see if things go back to the way they were. :o)]

You can search for your ancestors and communicate with others who are climbing the same family tree. RootsWeb hosts boards for the surname Dickey that you can post to and read. Here are the hyperlinks for those boards. Please only post queries and answers to queries on the query board, otherwise they will be deleted. You can learn about using the boards and about writing queries at the GenConnect Visitors Center.

Some valuable...

Search Links and Tips

The Dickey Boards at RootsWeb

More Links...