Using the Internet for Genealogy Research
by Cherie Logan

Genealogy needs remain constant - either you are receiving help or you are giving it.  Because of this, you can post information on the net and years later it will still be useful.  The only thing that is a pain with submitting information is that email addresses tend to change.  Web address also change.  To have a more secure referral site for months and years down the road, sign up for a free account such as Geocities.  Geocities is one of the largest and stable.  Register with Geocities and make a simple page even if all it says is: Genealogy Information Coming Soon!  This will give you the address to use when you visit the other sites.  Another excellent place of particular interest to those who love genealogy is Rootsweb FreePages.  Rootsweb is free and offers unlimited space.
 

The two basic purposes of the General Sites is to help you find the pages that will help you in your research or to provide a wide variety of resources for the researcher.
 

Purpose is to ask questions and aid others in research.
 

Examples of the kinds of things you might find:
 

These are the most useful sites for genealogy research because you have a smaller area to search your people.  If you are researching a name such as SMITH and rely on the surname searches you will have hundreds of unrelated hits.  If you know your SMITH passed through Sangamon, Illinois and use the county site for making your inquires, you have a much better chance of being related to the other people looking for their SMITHS.  State sites welcome volunteers and is a good way to get comfortable with interacting with web genealogists.  They usually have an email list to keep in touch and the help each other.  If you become known as one who helps others then when you have need for help it comes easily, such as wanting a certain census record looked up, copied and mailed when you are unable to get to the library.  It is a good investment to purchase some books of your most used counties so that you can help others as well as yourselves.
 

These sites provide census information that can be viewed as is or may be downloaded into your own computer for your research.  I like to download the entire county’s census and as I go through with my marriage information I can find complete families.  As I do and enter them into my computer, I add the wives maiden name right onto my downloaded census and mark the family as recorded by me with a bold type.  This is an excellent blend of using Census files with marriage files for personal research.
 

The purpose of these sites is to make contact with others researching the same surname.  You will also find Surname Resource Centers which bring together into one place information for a specific surname.  SRC is not concerned with connecting various branches only with providing a center for a particular name.  You may use these sites to look up your surnames, to email other researchers or to visit linked web pages but the best benefit comes when you register your surname AND write to the others researching the name.  These sites need to be visited on a regular basis to meet the new people researching your name.
 

The purpose of Web Rings is to connect various sites that have a common interest.  You don’t have to belong to a ring to use it.  Find the ring’s index page and visit the sites of interest.
 

The purpose of the lists is to unite the researchers through the email.  You must belong to the list in order to benefit from the exchange of information.
 

Bringing the Past Home
What is the big deal about genealogy?  What is it about dead people that makes thousands of people chose this hobby?  Find out how closely I came to identify with a 400 year old mother.

Using the Internet for Genealogy Research
The computer and internet opened the world for the genealogy hobbyist.  In an ever-changing world the goals of family research remains consistent so the Internet is an excellent tool.  It doesn't matter how long ago a post is made, the desire for sharing information about ancestors is always fresh.  This article gives some excellent links and suggestions for researching with today's technology.

The articles were written in the hope that they will help mothers realize just how normal chaotic life with children really is and how priceless the journey.