Tom's Genealogy Resource Page

Not all information is available on the Internet.  This is especially true of family history records!  This is key.  For example, some of our most valuable and interesting sources are old county history books such as History of Barbour County, Alabama by Mattie Thomas Thompson.  Ms. Thompson, it turns out, is a distant cousin of mine.  You won't find the content of her book on the Internet.  Instead you will have to go to a library or buy a copy  (I found my copy in the attic of an antique store in Mobile.)  The American Library Association describes ten reasons why the Internet is no substitute for a library.  Other wonderful resources available at local libraries are old Polk City Directories and the obituaries in local newspapers.  Most libraries have a "Genealogy" room or section with many (but not all) of their resources gathered in it and organized by type and/or by State or Country.  Visit and ask!  You will be surprised at your discoveries if you begin stopping at various libraries when you travel.  You might turn up a great Alabama history volume in a library in Montana.

Not everything on the Internet is searchable with Google!  Google and other search engines are wonderful tools but they don't search through sites such as Ancestry.com (described below) that contain the millions of census, draft records and ships' passenger lists that we genealogy enthusiasts depend on.

Not everything you find on the Internet is true.  Sad to say, but one thing the Internet has done is to make it possible for bad information to be replicated and distributed at the speed of light.  Any time you find a new piece of information, immediately wonder, "What is the source?"  It is particularly easy for a "family tree file" with little supporting evidence to be incorporated into someone else's "family tree file."

Ancestry.com  Containing literally billions of records, this subscription-based website has indexed all of the U.S. Census records from 1790 through 1930 and presents you with the digitized image of the actual census-taker's handwritten form.  A fairly recent addition is the World War I draft registration file.  Here you might find a great-grandfather's handwritten registration card where he describes his height weight, occupation and next of kin.  You can occasionally find a horror story about someone's attempt to cancel their Ancestry subscription but this is a mandatory resource for serious researchers.  Some libraries might offer the service to you as well.  It is well worth the cost to buy access to all U.S. records.  Highly recommended.

Talk to your relatives!  Everyone who gets involved in genealogy will recommend this as your starting point.  Your relatives will frequently say that "I don't know anything about the family background" but they frequently know a great deal more than they first say.  The key is to ask open-ended questions like, "Where did your grandfather do for a living?"  This might get you a nice story of grandpa's life growing up on a farm in Minnesota even if the person talking doesn't know exactly where grandpa was born.

The importance of County and it's history.  Most family history information is organized by county within state in the U.S.A.  Records for Eufaula, Alabama will be found under Barbour County.  Something to remember is that county boundaries changed over time.  Many states started with a few counties and these were later divided and later still, divided again.  You might find yourself needing records from a different county than you expected.  Fortunately, there are websites that provide the necessary boundaries.

Save everything.  Research your Family History is like playing detective or CSI investigator.  Anything you find today might turn out to be a critical item when combined with other evidence you find later.  My mother had an old address book from the 1950's that included a page with two addresses in Chicago.  Neither of the last names meant anything to me for the first seven years that I had the book.  When I finally found a clue to one of the last names, the other turned out to be a cousin of mom's who had changed his last name.

Keep Good documentation.  And keep it organized.  And review it frequently.  There is nothing as frustrating as thinking, "I saw that name once before, where was it?"  The computer has made it much easier to put documentation together and cross-reference it but you still can't beat a file storage box with manila folders for each individual and each town.  The more computer-savvy you are are, the more automated tools you will want to use.

	A bare minimum of computer tools is a genealogy program such as Family Tree Maker that will store the relationships between relatives.  Programs like this are available for prices ranging from for prices ranging from free for the Personal Ancestry File (PAF) to over a hundred dollars.  The higher priced versions come with a few more features but mostly they just add a number of CDs of data such as the SSDI file discussed above and readily available for free on the Internet.  The key factor to look for in any of these programs is the ability to import and export the files know as GEDCOM files. This allows you to exchange family trees with others.  Almost all Genealogy programs will do this but doublecheck on any "free" or "shareware" programs.
	Load the tree data onto a Palm (older models are available very cheaply on eBay) or other pocket organizer and take it with you wherever you travel.  Names and dates are what you need when you find yourself in Boston at a meeting and realize that the Massachusettes Historical Society is just around the corner from your hotel!
	The best documentation I have ever seen came from a someone who responded to my inquiry about a relative with not only information but a JPEG image copy of the relative's marriage certificate that had been overlaid with the Family History Center microfilm number and a date.  He keeps these kind JPEGs with links to them for most events in his family tree program.

The internet is a great place to search for books - not withstanding what I said before!  While the content of most books is not on-line, the books themselves frequently are.  Our local Minnesota library offers not just their own catalog on-line but also offers an interlibrary loan page that allows me to search many of the state's best libraries from home.  

Amazon and AbeBooks are great sites for finding Both offer access to thousands of booksellers and their used books.  And e-Bay is terrific if not always timely.  I have posted searches for "Buffalo Directory" and "Portland Directory" so that I get an e-mail anytime someone posts a Polk directory or telephone directory for either city.  Bidding gets pretty competitive for items like these - don't be timid.