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Time Travel Toolkit

By David A. Fryxell Premium

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Find it on the web

Telephone Directories on the Web <www.teldir.com>: Access to online phone books from more than 150 countries

Maps on Us <www.mapsonus.com>: Free, customizable US maps

MapQuest <www.mapquest.com>: Free, customizable US and world maps

Map Blast <www.mapblast.com>: Free, customizable US and world maps

Tiger Mapping Service <tiger.census.gov>: Search for US place names and generate free maps from census data

USCenWeb Project <www.usgenweb.org>: Links for genealogy information in all 50 states, with many individual counties represented

WorldGenWeb <worldgenweb.org>: Crowing site aiming to do for the world what USGenWeb does for US genealogy

Where to Write for Vital Records <www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/ w2welcom.htm>: US government guide to vital records in all 50 states

Vital Records Information <vitalrec.com> Locations of vital records throughout the US, plus links to foreign data

Online Library Catalogs <www.familytreemagazine.com/articles/librarylinks.html>: Search the catalogs before you go

FreeTranslation.com <www.freetranslation.com>: Instant translation from English into Spanish, French, Italian, German or Portuguese

A Web of Online Dictionaries <www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html>: Links to dozens of dictionaries in languages from Afrikaans to Zulu

 

Tour Tips

If you’re not up to planning a family history vacation on your own – particularly for a first trip overseas — check out these travel companies and organizations that specialize in genealogy trips:

EUROPEAN FOCUS

Box 550, Bountiful, UT 84011-0550, (800) 401-7802 or (801) 397-0686, <www.eurofocus.com>. Private tours of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Alsace, France, plus assistance with tours to Italy, Scandinavia and Great Britain.

ROUTES TO ROOTS

136 Sandpiper Key, Secaucus, NJ 07094, (201) 866-4075, <www.routestoroots.com>. Specializes in Jewish heritage tours to Eastern Europe; offices in Poland and the Ukraine.

CARAVELLA ITALIA

2112 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19103, (215) 665-1233. Specializes in Jewish heritage tours of Italy.

ASHTON DRYE ASSOCIATES

95 Squire Dr., Orchard Park, NY 14127, (800) 785-7785. Specializes in arts-related tours, but developing genealogy tours of Great Britain as a sideline.

MIR CORP

Suite 210, 85 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104, (800) 424-7289, <www.mircorp.com>. Tours of Eastern Europe and the Far East; offices in Russia.

EXTRAORDINARY PLACES

2325 NW Market St., Seattle, WA 98107, (800) 891-4706, <www.eplaces.com>. Custom tours worldwide.

P.A.T.H. FINDERS INTERNATIONAL

2225 Crestline Blvd., Olympia, WA 98502, (360) 754-2093, <www.terminal.cz/~pathfinders>. Specializes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

ELDERHOSTEL

75 Federal St., Boston, MA 02110-1941, (877) 426-8056, <www.elderhostel.org>. Wide variety of tours both in the United States and abroad, aimed at older travelers.

HISTORY AMERICA TOURS

Box 797687, Dallas, TX 75379, (800) 628-8542, <www.historyamerica.com>. US tours and cruises with historians.
 

Travel resources toolkit

Ancestry’s Red Book: American State, County and Town Sources edited by Alice Eichholz (Ancestry)

The Handybook for Genealogists, 9th ed. (Everton Publishers)

Searching on Location: Planning a Research Trip by Anne Ross Balhuizen (Ancestry)

The Educated Traveler newsletter, Box 220822, Chantilly, VA 20153, (800) 648-5168 or (703) 471-1063, <www.educated-traveler.com>

Door-to-Door 2000 Deluxe mapping software, TravRoute, 1000 Herrontown Rd., Princeton, NJ 08540, (888) 872-8768, <www.travroute.com>. Windows 95 or later, includes global positioning and Windows CE features

Street Atlas USA 7.0 mapping software, DeLorme, Box 298, 2 DeLorme Dr., Yarmouth, ME 04096, (800) 452-5931, <www.delorme.com>. Windows 95 or later, includes global positioning, Windows CE and Palm Pilot features; version 6.0 for Macintosh
 

From the June 2000 issue of Family Tree Magazine

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