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Genealogy and Local History

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Good Starting Points

• Beginner's Guides
• Comprehensive Sites
• Specialized Sites
• Surname Forums & Message Boards

• Beginner's Guides
  Each of these sites provides useful tips for family history research.

  • Charts and Forms
    Eight basic printable forms, including ancestral, family group and census extraction charts.

  • Climbing Your Family Tree: A Pathfinder
    Basic how-to procedures and sources. Most titles are available in the Virginia Room of the City of Fairfax Regional Library; call numbers may vary.

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  • Genealogical Records at the Library of Virginia
    Describes basic sources for Virginia research. Most of the printed sources are available in the Virginia Room and can be identified in the library's catalog.

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    To obtain a free Reader, follow this link:
    

  • Genealogical Standards and Guidelines
    A useful set of research standards created by the National Genealogical Society.

  • US Surgeon General's Family History Initiative
    Prepare a family medical history with these free charts and instructions.

• Comprehensive Sites

  • Access Genealogy
    This page provides a wealth of information, including a fine set of links on Native American genealogy.

  • Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
    More than 270,000 links, categorized and cross-referenced in more than 180 categories.

  • FamilySearch — Free Family History and Genealogy Records
    A very useful resource from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Search historical records, family trees and the catalog of microfilmed original records, which can be ordered at local FamilySearch Centers.

  • Genealogical Publishing Company Index
    Surname and subject indexes for many, but not all, books from Genealogical Publishing Company. Especially strong on Colonial era sources not indexed on other major services. Many of their books and CDs are available in the Virginia Room and can be identified in the library's catalog.

  • Mocavo
    Mocavo is a search engine that specifically searches for genealogical information. If you're searching for John Smith, use quotation marks around the name; Mocavo will find results for "John Smith," "Smith, John" and even "John A. Smith."

  • RootsWeb.com
    One of the most comprehensive genealogy sites.

  • USGenWeb Project
    Links to state and county sources. See especially the VAGenWeb portion of this site.

• Specialized Sites
  

  See also African American primary/secondary resources.
  
  
  • AfriGeneas
    A major site for African American genealogy and history, with links to a large array of resources including chat rooms.

  • Blacksheep Ancestors
    Selected prison, court and asylum records for the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

  • Ethnic Groups and People
    Cyndi's List provides links to genealogical information on ethnic groups, nationalities, countries, immigration and migration.

  • Gallaudet University Archives
    Deaf students from across the nation and around the world attended Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. This site strives to preserve the memory of the nationwide Deaf Community. This searchable collection includes lists of alumni, vital records information from insurance policies, images of The Silent Worker newspaper, and personal and organizational manuscripts.

  • Jewish Resources

    • Consolidated Jewish Surname Index
      Avotaynu, a publisher of books and magazines on Jewish genealogy, presents an index to information on nearly 700,000 surnames that appear in forty-two different databases. Names are indexed by sound rather than spelling.

    • Holocaust Memorial Museum
      Washington, DC's Holocaust Museum includes links to archives and tracing services for Holocaust victims.

    • International Tracing Service
      The archives of the International Tracing Service documents the fate of Holocaust victims.

    • JewishGen
      Databases, mailing lists, discussion groups and more. Be sure to try the Gazetteer, which will help you locate towns in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, even if you don't know the correct spelling.

  • United Kingdom Resources

    • GENUKI: UK and Ireland Genealogy
      An extensive site for genealogy concerning the United Kingdom and Ireland.

    • United Kingdom Blacksheep Ancestors
      Selected prison, court and execution records.

    • Proceedings of the Old Bailey
      A fully searchable online edition of more than 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court, which sentenced many convicts to transportation to colonial Virginia or Maryland.

  • The WorldGenWeb Project
    A growing effort to provide genealogy links for points near and far, with helpful links for region-specific research.

• Surname Forums and Message Boards

  • Ancestry.com
    A free search of message boards by surname, locality or topic.

  • GenForum
    Search message boards by surname, place or topic.

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Genealogy Libraries and Archives

• Archives
• Genealogy Libraries
• 
  

• Archives

  • Maryland State Archives
    Very well put together. Be sure to search the Archives' library by family name to find published genealogies.

  • National Archives and Records Administration — Genealogy
    The National Archives preserves and provides access to many federal government records of value to genealogists. Archival databases containing information on Irish famine immigrants, military records and more are among their available online resources.

  • National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
    Search NUCMC to see if any archives or societies report owning letters, diaries or other papers left by family members.

  • Repositories of Primary Sources
    The University of Idaho provides this excellent site for linking to special collections of primary resources around the world.

  • State Archives on the Web
    The National Archives' Archives Library Information Center provides contact information and links to the websites of state archives, many of which feature valuable research materials and databases.

  • UNESCO Archives Portal
    The UNESCO Archives Portal provides access to national, regional, municipal and university archival resources throughout the world.

• Genealogy Libraries

  • Allen County Public Library
    One of the largest genealogy collections in the country. Click on "Genealogy" to read more about their collections and browse their extensive links. Click on "Catalog" to search their collection.

  • Daughters of the American Revolution Genealogical Research Library
    The catalog of the library's broad holdings is online, as is the new Genealogical Records Committee National Index. If you believe a patriot is in your family tree, check into the free Patriot Index Lookup Service in the National Society section of their website.

  • Family History Library Catalog
    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Library in Salt Lake City holds the world's largest collection of genealogy materials, and much of their collection can be borrowed through their local Family History Centers.

  • Library of Congress
    See particularly the sections on the Local History & Genealogy Reading Room and the American Memory Project, which feature many records of value to genealogy researchers. A new feature allows users to search several of the library's collections from one search box.

  • Library of Virginia
    This site includes the library's catalog and many digitized records. Many of the microfilmed records are available on interlibrary loan through Fairfax County Public Library.

  • Mid-Continent Public Library
    Investigate the "Genealogy from the Heartland" collection, which this library loans free-of-charge across the country.

  • Newberry Library
    A premier genealogical collection in Chicago.

  • New England Historic Genealogical Society Library
    The New England Historic Genealogical Society's website, provides access to the NEHGS library catalog, as well as databases generated from primary and secondary resources vital for New England ancestry research. Some are available with free registration, while others require paid membership. Full access to all the databases is available for free in the Virginia Room.

  • St. Louis Public Library
    Now holds the collection of the National Genealogical Society Library.

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Local History and Genealogy

More links from the library's list of Local History and Genealogy Websites.

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Preservation

• Caring for Your Treasures
  Guides to preserving family heirlooms from the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

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Primary/Secondary Resources

• Good Starting Points
• African American Resources
• Military Resources
• Passenger Ship Lists
• West Virginia Resources
• 
  

• Good Starting Points

  • National Archives Digitized Records
    A list of records at the National Archives that have been digitized by their commercial partners. Records from Ancestry.com's Library Edition database are available on site at all Fairfax County Public Library branches. (These may be different from those available on Ancestry.com.)

  • The Official Land Patents Record Site
    The Bureau of Land Management provides access to millions of Federal land title records for public lands both east and west of the Mississippi River. Includes images of original documents.

  • Online Searchable Death Indexes & Records
    Online death indexes by state and county. Included are death indexes, obituaries, probate indexes as well as cemetery and burial indexes.

  • Social Security Death Index
    Send for a copy of the deceased's social security application, which provides the names of parents and birthplace. Enter the person's name in the first name and last name fields, but put year of birth and/or year of death in the keywords field.

  • Tombstone Transcription Project
    Prepared by USGenWeb volunteers. Includes a link to their Tombstone Photo Project.

  • US Railroad Retirement Board
    The US Railroad Retirement Board administers a federal retirement benefit program for the nation's railroad workers. The Board will provide information from its records on deceased persons for the purpose of genealogical research. The records begin in 1937, but the site includes links to other information sources about railroad employees.

• African American Resources
  

  See also local area genealogy and history resources and specialized sites for online genealogical research.

  • African American Cemeteries Online
    A growing site that can be searched by name or place.

  • Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware
    This online version of Paul Heinegg's book includes family histories, colonial period tax list and census data, as well as photographs.

  • Freedmen's Bureau Online
    The Freedmen's Bureau, established in 1865, supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen. Among the records selected for this site, are lists of residents at refugee camps, marriages, orphans, employment and crimes against residents. Records for Fairfax County and Northern Virginia are listed under "Washington, DC" rather than Virginia.

• Military Resources (National)
  

  See also the military resources listed under local area genealogy and history resources.

  • American Battle Monuments Commission
    The commission maintains lists of those interred in American military cemeteries overseas and those Missing in Action from World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. In addition, information describing commission-administered cemeteries and war memorials worldwide is available.

  • Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System
    This National Park Service database contains information from 6.3 million soldier records from 44 US states and territories. The data was taken from the General Index Cards in the National Archives and Records Administration's Compiled Military Service Records. Navy records will be included in the future, although about 18,000 African American sailors are already cataloged. The site also has information such as regimental histories and links to descriptions of nearly 400 significant battles.

  • Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
    More than 10,000 ship histories, from the earliest days to Vietnam and beyond. Includes some Coast Guard vessels, revenue cutters and the Confederate Navy.

  • National Personnel Records Center
    The National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records is the repository of millions of military personnel, health and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century.

  • National Registry of Service
    The Library of Congress Veterans' History Project was created to honor our nation's war veterans for their service and to collect their stories and experiences. The project focuses on World War I (1914-1920), World War II (1939-1946) and the Korean (1950-1955), Vietnam (1961-1975) and Persian Gulf (1990-1995) wars, and includes all participants in those wars — men and women, civilian and military.

  • Nationwide Gravesite Locator
    ""Search for burial locations of veterans and their family members in national cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and for veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave is marked with a government grave marker." Burials in private cemeteries include only those from 1997 to the present. From the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Arlington National Cemetery records can be found at the ANC Explorer.

  • Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
    Formal reports, both Union and Confederate, of military operations in the field, with the correspondence, orders and returns relating to the action. The full text is completely searchable.

  • Old Naval Hospital, Washington DC
    The Friends of the Old Naval Hospital plan to transcribe the estimated 20,500 pages of records of patients admitted and treated in the Naval Hospital from 1866 to 1906. The site currently includes almost 500 images of these handwritten records, for patients admitted in 1866 and 1867, as well as photographs and historical information.

  • Prisoners of War and Missing Personnel
    The list of unrecovered service personnel from WWII, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam and the 1991 Gulf War. It includes those from all military services, including the Merchant Marine.

  • Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
    The National Graves Registration Project of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War is a searchable database of both Union and Confederate burials.

  • Vietnam Veterans Memorial
    This interactive memorial to veterans allows users to view names and summary records for any of the 58,256 veterans killed or missing in the Vietnam War.

  • WWII Registry
    The World War II Registry is part of the National World War II Memorial. It includes veterans, those killed or missing in action and some civilians on the home front. It is not a complete listing of WWII soldiers.

• Passenger Ship Lists

  • American Family Immigration History Center
    Database of Ellis Island arrival records that have been transcribed by Latter Day Saints volunteers. Be sure to try various spellings and permutations of both the first and last names (including just using a first initial), and bear in mind that errors have been found in the transcriptions.   Note: Free registration is required.

  • Castle Garden
    CastleGarden.org offers free access to information on 10 million immigrants who arrived in New York from 1830 through 1892, the year Ellis Island opened. Alternative search strategies for this database are available at One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse.

  • Directory of Passenger Ship Arrivals
    This database pulls together the data from various passenger ship lists published on the Internet. Search alphabetically, by vessel name or by US port of arrival.

  • Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild
    Though still a work in progress, this database of passenger lists transcribed by the guild is a truly invaluable resource. Search passenger lists by date, ship's name, port of departure or arrival, or even passenger's or captain's surname.

  • One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse
    Steve Morse offers indexing and search strategies for accessing data in the passenger lists of Castle Garden, Ellis Island, Baltimore, Boston, Galveston, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

  • The Ships List
    A growing list of resources for those seeking the details of their ancestors' ships: passenger records, contemporary immigration reports, newspaper records, ship wreck information, ship pictures, etc. Seeks to present information not included in other immigration sources. Includes an excellent Frequently Asked Questions section that explains the basics of immigration searching.

• West Virginia Resources

  • RootsWeb's West Virginia
    Links to information on West Virginia counties and genealogical and historical societies.

  • West Virginia Vital Research Records
    This database includes more than a million West Virginia birth, death and marriage records. Search indexes and view scanned images of the original birth, death and marriage records from six counties, some as early as 1853, as well as most statewide death certificates from 1917-54.

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Reference Works/Tools

• Antiquus Morbus
  Decipher causes of death found on old death certificates and mortality lists. Provides definitions of archaic medical terms and their modern day equivalents.

• Association of Professional Genealogists
  National Capital Area Chapter.

• Federal Population Censuses

  • Indexes to the Soundex and Census Schedules Microfilm
    The National Archives and Records Administration has produced these online indexes to the microfilm copies of the federal censuses. Use them to identify the microfilm publication and roll numbers you will need in your research.

  • The Soundex Indexing System
    Describes the coding rules for this system based on the sound of a surname as opposed to its spelling. It is used to index the post-1880 US census records.

• FuneralNet
  Addresses and phone numbers of funeral homes and cemeteries in the United States and Canada.

• Historical and Genealogical Societies of the United States

• Nickname Index
  Social Security's list of names and nicknames for men and women can be a clue to finding relatives whose legal name may be different from the name they commonly used.

• Vital Records State Index
  How to apply for state and local records, and links to sites around the United States.

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