My Resource Recommendations

Ancestry.com Highly recommended! Excellent search utilities and very broad resources, many with real records available instantly online. The census images are absolutely worth the subscription price. No more waiting for six months to get an envelope with one page from the NARA for ten dollars, or sifting through hours of microfilm/fiche at the library. Initial search is okay for the SSDI but use Advanced Search for entering more refined criteria. Civil War Pension Index is very informative. This is the only Gen service or product I have paid for to date and it has been my primary source for primary records.

Google! Highly recommended! Fantastic search engine for the whole world wide web and because of their terrific search logic it is possible to actually ferret out specific records for your ancestors from the whole enchilada. It's a matter of forming your search criteria well. You can read their help page on how to do this. Please do bear in mind that computer searches are very literal. There is no soundex or fuzzy search in a regular search engine, so if you are looking for Riker or Ryker or Reaker, etc, then you will need to do multiple searches for the multiple spellings.

FamilyTreeMaker Skip it. Family Treemaker is now folded into or has become Genealogy.com and as far as I can tell, it's now just one big store front for them to sell whatever they can. Everything seems to lead to "Buy this!" and I refuse. I don't use this resource much any more. If I have exhausted all other routes, I may do a Family Finder Search there, but I don't expect much before they dump me into their advertising loop.

USGenWeb is a state-by-state resource, especially useful for OHGenWeb, in my case... and the USGenWeb Archive Search. USGenWeb comprises a lot of data but results are variable. It is wonderful that people are working together to make data freely available. However, they are working independently on how it is presented. SO, who and what you're looking for may or may not be there, or may be a little tricky to find. It gets better every day though as people learn how to work the web better and folks find each other to pool information. I am grateful for GenWeb's efforts to provide a gateway.

RootsWeb Confusing place because they have gathered in a few of the other Gen sites, however, there IS a world of information there and a lot of people feeding it. One of the places they've folded in is USGenWeb, but I found it less confusing to go there directly.

Rootsweb is now accessible through and supported by Ancestry.com and still FREE. This is also to Ancestry.com's credit. The WorldConnect Project is truly becoming a world-wide family tree and can be accessed through either Rootsweb.com or Ancestry.com without cost.

RootsWeb has Resources you can access by surname or state or county within state. Once you select a geographic area, then there are several search forms you can use based on what info you have or think you have.

Cyndi's List Spaghetti junction. There's almost too much here. Would recommend waiting until you get your feet wet then use this to find alternative resources although most of what's listed you will have stumbled onto already.

LDS Family Search
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints		 I use their PAF software which is great for organizing family data and reporting it or passing along GEDCOMs, etc. ALSO, their data has become quite expansive including 1880 Census records! They do not have the images available but it's all been transcribed and is completely searchable!

LDS Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software *FREE*
Go to www.lds.org then follow "Family History" link to "Order/Download Products" to "Software Downloads - free" and download the "Personal Ancestral File" software, newest version available.

Census Links
Census Online 		Some census indexes and data are available online and free. These two sites are organized by state and county. Most of the data is transcribed, a few counties have images posted. Right now, free access to the actual data is very much incomplete, but these two locations are a good beginning. Check in the geographic area you are researching to see if what you need is available.

WWW.NARA.GOV National Archives and Records Administration
not a lot of data visible online, but this would be the horse's mouth - use Research Room and from there NAIL search to find the indexes of the indexes and microfilm numbers, etc. Site also has instructions on how to order copies from the NARA. It is as clear and user-friendly as one might expect a government site to be (which is to say, not very).

Surname Web Great name for a Gen website. Not all that useful, at least for my searches, but you never know.


~ ~ ~ Ohio or Southern Ohio Specific ~ ~ ~
My searches were concentrated along the Ohio River, east to west, through Scioto, Adams, Brown, Clermont and Hamilton Counties and across the river into Kentucky. Through history, county boundaries change. At one time, Adams county was part of Hamilton or included Scioto, etc. Sometimes modern boundaries can confound research because what is Scioto today may have been Adams in your ancestor's lifetime and therefore in the records. Modern and Historical Geographical references will be helpful and in some cases, necessary.

Scioto.org More than just Scioto County is connected here. Recommended stop on any search in southern/southwestern Ohio.

Ohio River Valley Families Selected families in the area. This site has gone through a lot of changes. It now appears to have some commercial interests and otherwise a few hotlinks to data available elsewhere.


Bonus tip: In Southern Ohio, many names that end in 'a' are pronounced as if they end in 'ie.' If you don't believe me, ask about my great grandmothers, Anna and Eva, who were religiously called "Annie" and "Evie" or my grandmothers Berche/Berchie and even Martha, which sounds much like 'Marthy' in that region. This can be a problem when verbally interviewing relatives from there then trying to search for the names you heard but didn't see written down. There are certainly other colloquialisms in other regions of the country. Just so you know.



~ ~ ~ Other Trinkets ~ ~ ~

Hamrick US Surname Distribution
cool toy! graphical representation of surname in the US from Census data for 1850, 1880, 1920 and 1990


~ ~ ~ A Note on Gen Research ~ ~ ~


In my experience, anything that says 'message board', 'mailing list' or 'forum' is going to be a shot in the dark. These are generally notes from individuals looking for specific missing info, although a few actually post some info they've found which might or might not be useful to you. Sometimes you can make individual contact with persons who are working in your lines or close enough for you to exchange data. I am thrilled and amazed at the family-like cooperation that occurs in this endeavor. That alone makes it rewarding.

I have learned what little I know about this stuff just by floating around in it for a while. It's a different environment but fairly easy to spot the trends in the way things are communicated, I think. The art of it is finding global archive searches and being creative with your search criteria. Oh, and really listen to what your ancestors may have told you already. Keeping in mind their lives in their timeframe may help you solve a few mysteries.

I hope you find this info helpful. Good luck on your journey.

Diana Henderson Probus