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101 Best Family History Web Sites
By Melanie Rigney
American History
www.loc.gov www.thehistorynet.com moa.cit.cornell.edu/MOA/moa-mission.html www.nara.gov/genealogy www.nara.gov/genealogy/soundex/soundex.html www.ellisisland.org www.ushistory.org/march www.history-magazine.com www.blm.gov www.angelisland.org/immigr02.html www.ushistory.org/ pda.republic.net/othsa/ www.nps.gov/cacl/ www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/
The Library of Congress site has a wonderful American Memory page, with links to more than 60 collections, searchable by keyword or time period in a variety of media.
This site from Cowles History Group provides a nice assortment of articles about famous people and events in history.
Cornell University and the University of Michigan established the Making of America Project to provide online access to important 19th century US journals and books.
The National Archives and Records Administration doesn't have a lot of actual records online, but does provide great explanations of what you'll find at regional offices, how to get data, what you're likely to find (including the burned 1890 census), and how to order microfilm of military records. Don't miss the handy page that helps you figure the Soundex number for surnames you're searching
Soundex assigns numbers to various vowels and vowel combinations, which means the resulting code should cover all likely surname spelling variations (Chatterton, Chadderton, Chatterdon and Chadderton all have the same code, for example) in more recent US Census indexes.
More than 40 percent of Americans can trace their roots to an ancestor who came through Ellis Island. All told, 12 million immigrants entered the US here between 1892 and 1954, the largest migration in modern history. No records to search here, but if you have an ancestor among the 12 million, it's worth a look.
The non-profit Independence Hall Association offers a feel for life during the time of the American Revolution. The idea is to give students, teachers, libraries and other interested people an easy way to learn about the era's people, ideas, places and events.
History Magazine, from the publishers of Family Chronicle, made its debut in late 1999. The magazine's goal is to help researchers link social history with the lives of their ancestors.
The US Bureau of Land Management's site includes access to more than 2 million federal land titles issued in the eastern US between 1820 and 1908. There's also general current and historical information about land ownership and use.
This National Historic Landmark near San Francisco is known as the "Ellis Island of the West." When Angel Island opened in 1910, it was expected to handle European immigrants headed for California via the Panama Canal. Instead, the facility handled about 250,000 immigrants from Asia, 70 percent of them Chinese. While records aren't searchable here, you'll get a good feeling for what those detained at Angel Island had to go through to enter the US.
The Independence Hall Association's site is heavy on the Philadelphia area and its importance during the American Revolution, with links to learn more about that period of history.
Between 1853 and 1930, as many as 200,000 American children rode the Orphan Train. Often, they were immigrants recently arrived in New York whose parents died or were neglectful. The children were shipped to the West where many were in essence miniature indentured servants. Learn their stories from the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, and see if your ancestors were among the riders.
If your ancestors arrived in the US before Ellis Island opened in 1892, there's a good chance they were among the 8 million-plus immigrants who entered at Castle Garden just off Manhattan Island (today, it's Castle Clinton National Monument). The location began life as a military fort in 1811, then was an entertainment center before becoming an immigrant landing depot in 1855. It closed in 1890, reopened as the New York City Aquarium six years later and was closed in 1941. The Web site doesn't provide databases for immigrants, but there's a good deal of information about the monument's history.
Don't pass this site by simply because of its humble beginnings as a 10th-grade history class project. It's probably the best single site around to explain the US migration experience. Broken down into periods from 1607 to the present, it presents an exhaustive amount of information about why immigrants came to this country, what they had to do to enter, where they went and how they were treated by other Americans.
Melanie Rigney is the editor of Writer's Digest magazine www.writersdigest.com and a long-time family history researcher.
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