Genealogy Websites
- Cyndi's ListFamily history links to get you started.
- Ellis IslandGo here for Passenger Searches & don't miss their genealogy section.
- Family SearchBuild your family tree online, search records, and share information.
- GeniUse this site to build your family tree, share with others and more.
- National Obituary ArchiveRepository of obituaries and death records with more than 55 million individual entries on file. Visitors may search the archive freely to learn about the deaths of friends or family or to explore relationships when building family trees or doing genealogical research.
- Social Security Death IndexThe SSDI is one of largest and easiest to access databases for genealogical research. Facts from the SSDI often can be used to further genealogical research by allowing death certificates, obituaries, cemetery and probate records to be located. However, although it a great finding aid, the SSDI does not include the names of everyone; if the funeral home did not report the death to the SSA or if the person died before 1962, then they probably will not appear in the database.
- U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Genealogy ProgramThe USCIS Genealogy Program is a fee-for-service program providing family historians and other researchers with timely access to historical immigration and naturalization records of deceased immigrants.
- United States Archive and Records AdministrationSearch Veteran's Service Records
DVDs
- Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.his 10-part series, with the renowned cultural critic and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., delves into the genealogy and genetics of famous Americans, combining history and science in a fascinating exploration of race, family and identity in today's America. Professor Gates shakes loose captivating stories and surprises in the family trees of Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey, Jr., Branford Marsalis, John Legend, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters and Rick Warren, among many others.
- Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates Jr.Gates explores the ancestry of twelve well-known Americans.
- Finding Oprah's roots: finding your own byLearn about the past of the African American people and how more and more can be linked to their ancestors in Africa, thanks to genealogical research and DNA-analysis developments.
Getting Started
Genealogy online for dummies by Offers advice on researching family history on the Web, including search strategies, data sharing, government records, genealogical software, and publishing the results on the Web.
