This is fairly long and is more a general hint than specific data for
a surname or county. It was inspired by Cliff Lamere, one of the
mainstays of the NY Columbia County list and a splendid fellow. In a
nutshell: when I start a new line or get a new family I make a list of
everyone I want to check and every web site I want to check them on,
using Excel. The checking may take several weeks. The Excel file helps
me remember who I have looked for, and where.
This may be old hat to some of you. "What's he going to invent next,
fire?" you may ask yourselves, with a wry ironic chuckle. But, if you
haven't thought of it and are interested, read on.
To start, you need a text file of the people in question in the form
"surname, given names, birthdate". The commas are important. All good
genealogy programs will let you format a custom report of selected
individuals and "print" to a text file instead of paper. You may have
to read the help if you've never done so.
Next, tell Excel (or whatever spreasheet program you use) to open the
custom report as a comma-delimited text file. "comma delimited" means
the data that will go in each column is separated by a comma. Since
you had a comma between the surname and given names, and between the
given names and birth date, you'll now have a spreadsheet with three
columns - surname, given names and birth date. They will be columns A,
B, and C. The birth dates help on some search engines, and help you
determine which "Polly Smith" you are looking for.
Insert a row at the top for a heading. Fill in the heading row for
columns D onward with the places you want to look, on the web and
elsewhere. Then, once you check a person on a site, put an "X" in
their row for that column. You could do the same in Word or even with
a sheet of paper, a #2 pencil and a ruler, but Excel has some nice
features. It lets you freeze panes and hide either rows or columns.
When you re-open the file, it will come up in the spot youleft off the
last time you saved and closed. You can sort the data easily. I find
it easier to ALT+TAB from browser to Excel to my genealogy program
than to look back and forth from paper to screen, too.
My first eleven columns are always the same - basic web sites
everyone should have in their bookmarks.
1)
http://www.familysearch.com/
The LDS megasite. If someone's name is common I try twice, once by
name alone and a birth year, once without a birth year but with a
spouse. Their search engine is awfully smart; I once found a lady who
I entered as "Mary", and they had as "Polly".
2)
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
RootsWeb World Connect / Ancestry World Trees. If you miss here on
the exact search, try using the soundex option and checking the little
box at the bottom that says "Fuzzy Logic".
3)
http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
RootsWeb Mailing list archives for the surname. Enter the surname. If
it can't find it, they will show you a link to all the surnames they
do have, and you can try one that is close. We WILKEN researchers had
to make do with the WILKIN list for a ling time, for instance. WILKENS
researchers are still stuck with us singular types.
Once you get the mailing list, you have to enter an argument in the
search box and pick a year. Make sure you search all of the years.
Since every post to the WILKEN surname list will be about the WILKEN
family, if you search for WILKEN in it you'll get more hits than you
want. The best bet is to search for a spouse's name, if you have one.
County names (or even city names) and given names work too. The search
is exact, so if you use a spouse's surname, try alternate spellings.
4)
http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
RootsWeb Mailing list archives for the county. You'll notice the
starting point is the same as the Surname mailing list. All the county
mailing list names are eight characters or less. The first two are the
state abbreviation, the next six are the county name, or as much as
will fit; Monroe County, WV is WVMONROE and CASTANIS is Stanislaus
County, out here in California. Searching the county archives is a
little different, too. Most of my ancestors were born in one county,
married in a second, and died in a third. They kept moving west.
(Whether they were drawn by the lure of the wide frontier or pushed by
their old neighbors is subject to debate.) I find it easier to make a
short list of likely counties, find each county's mailing list, and
search for two or three surnames at a time. It is possible to make a
second spreadsheet specifically for county searches; if you are
interested, write to me, not the list.
5)
http://genforum.genealogy.com/surnames/
GenForum surname page. Their search engine works only on the forum in
question, not across all forums, although they keep trying. Again,
search for a given name, a spouse or a county.
6)
http://genforum.genealogy.com/regional/states/counties/
Genforum county page. Each state forum has thousands of queries with
headings like "Smith family - please help", "Searching for family" or
"Grandfather". Pass them by and click on the link labeled "Counties
for this state". Find the one(s) you need and search by surname.
7)
http://www.usgenweb.net/statelinks-table.html
US Gen Web County Pages. Many have a seach engine. Some can take weeks
to explore, if they have a lot of volunteers who have donated data and
your time is limited. By now you should have a good idea of which
counties you should focus on.
8)
http://www.gendex.com
Gene Stark's GenDex. This is an old site, sometimes overlooked. It has
a massive index to other people's data, organized by surname.
9 & 10)
http://www.familyhistory.com/
Family History Boards. Their global search engine does work, so my
first try is always the person plus the spouse. In the box labeled
"Messages" I put, for instance,
+McCorkle +Pomeroy
to see if anyone else has asked about a McCorkle-Pomeroy marriage.
Their search engine needs the plus signs, and it seems to be
case-sensitive. To be really sure, you should try it three ways; all
caps, all lower, and regular. After that, use the "Find a board"
feature for a surname or a county and search them.
11)
http://www.gencircles.com/
Gen Circles. Most people who have uploaded their data here have also
uploaded it elsewhere, and it gets indexed by GenDex. I put it here
because it isn't as widely known as it should be. Their claim to fame
is a matching service. After you upload your GEDCOM, they will match
it against everyone else's GEDCOM and list the individuals you have in
common. After (if) you upload your data to GenCircles, wait a day or
two and then go check the matches.
12 - up) Some families lend themselves to different web sites.
RootsWeb has a mailing list for seven counties in Southern West
Virginia, for instance. Cliff Lamere has a glorious web site for
the counties around Albany, NY. The state of Illinois has a register
of Civil War soldiers, and another of early marriages. Columns are
easy to add. You could also put columns for census look-ups, land
deeds, cemetery records and so on. I prefer to keep a permanent record
of those, with each person, so that I don't write to the cemetery
every three or four years hoping they have something about Great Uncle
Wilbur.
Note that if you find someone new - a spouse, for instance - you
should add him/her to the list and check him against the places you've
checked everyone else already. Having everyone in alphabetical order
helps a lot, so re-sort your spreadsheet every once in a while to put
the new people in their proper place.