When Ancestry acquired Roots Web nearly two years ago, the family history world buzzed with curiosity about what changes the merger might bring. The biggest change so far: The powerhouse pair has revamped its message board system, replacing the old FamilyHistory.com and GenConnect forums. At launch, the new boards at <boards.ancestry.com> boasted the largest collection of family history messages on the Internet — with more than 18 million free postings.

If you used the old boards but were frustrated by their less-than-user-friendly interface, it's time you went back and searched again. The new message boards have a cleaner appearance, use slick search technology and are a breeze to navigate. The more than 100,000 boards are divided into surname, locality and research topics.

Although you'll probably jump right into a message search, don't miss out on some built-in extras that can reduce your research time. For example, you can add any board to My Notifications if you want to receive an e-mail when a new message is posted. This means you don't have to return to the site time and again in hopes of finding a new posting about your surname. You can also add any board to My Favorites, which is a list of quick links to your most frequently visited forums.