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International & Immigration | |
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The 101 Best Family History Web Sites: 2004 Index | |
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August 2004 Issue | |
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International & Immigration
AncestorSuperSearch.com Avotaynu Danish Demographic Database Data Banks on Italian Emigrants Ellis Island Federation of East European Family History Societies Find Your Swedish Roots FreeBMD Geneactes Genealogy.net GENUKI Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild ItalianAncestry.com JewishGen Norway's Digital Archives Palatines to America PolishRoots Scottish Archive Network Spanish Genealogy TheShipsList WorldGenWeb Find news and reviews on more great Web sites in the August 2004 Family Tree Magazine.
Paid Content
www.ancestorsupersearch.com
Among the many excellent online offerings for researching English branches of your family tree, AncestorSuperSearch.com covers 1.46 million birth and census events from 1755 to 1891.
Arkion's Swedish Census Database
www.arkion.se
Those efficient Scandinavians have wonderful records, and they must spend their long winter nights putting that data online. This searchable subscription database, for example, concentrates on the Swedish censuses of 1870, 1880, 1890 and 1900—more than 9 million individuals in all. Recent additions include a database of prisoners released between 1877 and 1925, which links to photos of your Swedish black sheep. Access costs $6 for three hours, $35 for 10 three-hour
sessions or $110 for a year.
www.avotaynu.com
This leading Jewish genealogical publisher makes available online, for free, the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index of more than 370,000 Jewish surnames that appear in 31 different databases.
ddd.sa.dk/ddd_en.htm
Search for your Danish roots in free databases of censuses, probate records and, most notably for researchers on the US side of the Atlantic, emigration records covering 1868 to 1908.
213.212.128.168/radici/ie/defaultie_e.htm
Don't let the decidedly user-unfriendly Web address—or the requirement that you register to use the site—scare you off. These databases cover 200,000 Italians who crossed to New York between 1880 and 1891 (before Ellis Island opened), along with a million-plus emigrants to South America.
www.ellisisland.org
This is the only genealogy Web site whose launch was featured on the "Today" show—and no wonder: Ellis Island, the gateway to America for millions of immigrants between 1892 and 1924, is synonymous with the nation's "melting pot" heritage. Find your immigrant ancestors in the free online database, then view their actual passenger manifests and images of the ships they traveled on.
feefhs.org
Start exploring your Eastern European roots with these links to member societies, maps and research guides. Don't miss the expanding array of databases, covering foreign-born voters in 1872 California, World War I
Polish soldiers in France, and an ambitious reconstruction of vital records destroyed in San Francisco's 1906 earthquake, when the city was home to many European emigrants.
www.genealogi.se/roots
The Federation of Swedish Genealogical Societies maintains this exhaustive guide, written in both English and Swedish. Recent database additions include old photos and emigrant information. Click on the Anbytarforum link for Sweden's version of GenForum, where you'll be surprised at how many participants understand English (at least better than you read Swedish).
freebmd.rootsweb.com
Another amazing volunteer endeavor, the FreeBMD project aims to create an online index of English and Welsh births, marriages and deaths. To date, nearly 78 million records, covering 1837 to 1903, have been posted.
www.geneactes.org/index-en.html
Voila! Your French ancestors are waiting to be found in these databases of civil records, including marriage documents searchable by keyword, name or place.
www.genealogienetz.de/genealogy.html
In addition to how-to help (in English) and links, this gateway to German genealogy offers regional resources; record-request form letters; and databases of place names, GEDCOMs, genealogy groups, marriages and obituaries.
www.genuki.org.uk
This virtual reference library can help answer your questions about researching roots in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Hamburg Link to Your Roots
fhh1.hamburg.de/fhh/behoerden/staatsarchiv/link_to_your_roots/english
Even if your ancestors came from elsewhere in Europe, the growing database of emigrants who sailed from this German city is worth a look: Your family might have left from Hamburg, a common departure port between 1850 and 1934. So far, the database covers 1890 to 1905. Searching is free, but you'll pay for full results according to a sliding scale, which starts at $22 for one to three names.
www.immigrantships.net
What if your ancestors didn't come through Ellis Island? Try this database of passenger lists from more than 5,000 ships, all transcribed by volunteer "guild" members (and read our article on page 42).
www.italianancestry.com
You can explore all things Italian at this in-depth gateway site, including genealogy societies, Italian names, occupational terms and emigration information.
www.jewishgen.org
Besides being a popular starting point for researching Jewish ancestors, especially European Jews, this site offers an array of databases, such as the Family Finder of 300,000 surnames and ancestral towns; the Family Tree of the Jewish People, with data on more than 2 million individuals; the Holocaust Database of 500,000 victims and survivors; and the new Online Worldwide Burial Registry with 300,000 entries. JewishGen's ShtetlSeeker will help you locate ancestral towns in Eastern and Central Europe. The site also hosts Stephen Morse's one-step Ellis Island search tool.
digitalarkivet.uib.no
This national archives site is packed with goodies: 1801, 1865, 1875 and 1900 censuses; tax lists; military rolls; and church, emigrant and probate registers. Plus, the new Digital Inn holds user-submitted data.
Origins.net
www.origins.net
This British Isles umbrella includes subscription access to Griffith's Valuation for Irish research as well as Boyd's Marriage Index and Bank of England wills and apprentice records for English research ($9.75 a week). Scottish researchers will find a free parish-level search of the International Genealogical Index (a FamilySearch database), plus free place-name searching. Origins.net also offers Origin Search, a proprietary Webwide genealogy search covering more than 450 million names ($5 a day).
Otherdays.com
www.otherdays.com
With subscriptions ranging from $8 for three days to $44 a year, this ever-expanding treasure trove of Irish data is a bargain if your kin came from the Emerald Isle. Databases and features include Griffith's Valuation from 1847 to 1864, Ordnance Survey maps from 1824 to 1846, Dublin wills and marriages for 1270 to 1857, gravestone inscriptions, directories, and free map and photo searches. (You can save a few bucks by paying $35 to join the Godfrey Memorial Library, whose Web site provides access to Otherdays.com, plus databases of digitized census records, family histories, newspapers and biographies from subscription services sold only to libraries.)
palam.org
This organization for descendants of German emigrants—not just those from the Palatine region—continues to beef up its online presence. You can search the online catalog of its 5,000-volume library or find clues and like-minded researchers among seven years' worth of queries organized by surname.
www.polishroots.com
Popular attractions at this gateway for Polish genealogy include a surname registry, databases such as Polish National Alliance Lodges and Galician Vital Records, and translated entries from the Slownik Geograficzny, a 19th-century gazetteer.
ScotlandsPeople
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
A virtual Highland fling for researchers, this official online source of Scottish parish registers, civil registrations and census records
contains nearly 40 million records. The data-
bases—collectively among the Web's largest—include a searchable index of births from 1553 to 1903, marriages from 1553 to 1928 and deaths from 1855 to 1953, plus census data from 1881 to 1901. You can view, save and print images of many of the original documents you find. But you won't get off Scot-free here: The cost is about $11 for 30 page credits over 48 hours.
www.scan.org.uk
Thank Scottish lottery players for funding this national archives project, which digitizes a wealth of Scottish history plus 1852 to 1857 Highlands and Islands Emigration Society passenger lists and wills and testaments from 1500 to 1901 (you'll find these at www.scottishdocuments.com).
www.ldelpino.com/geneal.html
This bilingual site for digging into your Spanish roots is packed with links, tips and guides to Spanish towns and archives. You also can plumb a 27,000-entry database of Hispanic last names.
www.theshipslist.com
A handy adjunct to other immigration sites, this collection of more than 1,000 pages (mostly passenger lists) is particularly strong on ships that arrived at Canadian ports.
www.worldgenweb.org
This globe-spanning counterpart to USGenWeb (see page 31) is more of a mixed bag than its domestic cousin, and some sites require more foreign-language ability than many Americans can muster. But it's still a good jumping-off point, and you can reach several European-country sites from here. Among the best are PolandGenWeb and DutchGenWeb.
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