Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The field of family history is broader than genealogy, and covers not just lineage but also family and community history and biography.
The FamilySearch Library (FSL), formerly the Family History Library, is a genealogical research facility in downtown Salt Lake City. The library is open to the public free of charge and is operated by FamilySearch, the genealogical arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Society of Genealogists (SoG) is a UK-based educational charity, founded in 1911 to "promote, encourage and foster the study, science and knowledge of genealogy". The Society's Library is the largest specialist genealogical library outside North America. Membership is open to any adult who agrees to abide by the Society's rules and who pays the annual subscription. At the end of 2010, it had 11,014 members.
A family history society or genealogical society is a society, often charitable or not-for-profit, that allows member genealogists and family historians to profit from shared knowledge. Large societies often own libraries, sponsor research seminars and foreign trips, and publish journals. Some societies concentrate on a specific niche, such as the family history of a particular geographical area, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Lineage societies are societies that limit their membership to descendants of a particular person or group of people of historical importance.
FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is closely connected with the church's Family History Department (FHD). The Family History Department was originally established in 1894, as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU); it is the largest genealogy organization in the world.
Interment.net is a United States-based website containing a free online database of transcriptions from headstones, intended to be a research tool for use by genealogists and historians. As of 2006, the site was one of the top 15 free genealogy websites on the Internet. Its cemetery database to date includes more than 6 million cemetery records from around the world.
Gramps is a free and open-source genealogy software. Gramps is programmed in Python using PyGObject, and uses Graphviz to create relationship graphs.
The Families In British India Society (FIBIS) is a genealogical organisation which assists people in researching their family history and the background against which their ancestors led their lives in British India.
The East Surrey Family History Society is a genealogical association in Surrey, England. It was founded in 1977 and, while it has an interest in all of the county of Surrey, it has particular interest in the parishes in the eastern part of the ancient county of Surrey. This includes several modern day London boroughs – Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Richmond, Southwark, Sutton and Wandsworth.
Nicholas David Barratt is an English genealogist, broadcaster and historian and is currently the Executive Director of Student Journey at Royal Holloway University of London. He was the original genealogical consultant and on-screen expert for series 1 to 4 of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? and worked on the format in the Republic of Ireland and Australia. Barratt has made other TV appearances, written books and been the President of the Family History Federation, Trustee of the Society of Genealogists and board member for the Community Archives and Heritage Group. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
FreeBMD is a website which coordinates and provides free transcriptions of the indexes to births, marriages and deaths (BMD) held by the General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO). It also provides a free search function and online access to images of the pages of the BMD indexes. The website was founded in 1998. FreeBMD was registered as a UK charity in 2003, with the organisation changing its name to Free UK Genealogy in 2014 to reflect the broadening of its scope.
The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (GSP) is a non-profit educational institution headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1892, it is one of the oldest genealogical societies in the United States. Its mission is "to provide leadership and support in promoting genealogy through education, preservation and access to Pennsylvania-related genealogical information."
The Society of Australian Genealogists (SAG) is an Australian-based non-profit organisation whose principal objective is the advancement of genealogical education.[1] The SAG is the oldest family history society in Australia and holds the largest genealogical archives and research library in the country. The head office, archives and research library are located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The society membership numbers nearly 4,000 members world-wide.
The Open Genealogy Alliance (OGA) is a UK-based project launched by three partners: the Open Rights Group, Open Knowledge Foundation and FreeBMD. OGA is currently researching the genealogy sector and the copyright status of digitized public domain documents. The project was announced on 2 March 2011 by the Open Rights Group.
Findmypast is a UK-based online genealogy service owned, since 2007, by British company DC Thomson. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of genealogists formed a group named "Title Research". The first internet website went live in 2003.
The Ontario Genealogical Society, operating as Ontario Ancestors since early 2019, is the largest organization devoted to research into family history in Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1961 as a Registered Charity corporation, the Society has grown by 2020 to include 30 local branches covering all of Ontario and five Special Interest Groups.
TheGenealogist is a family history website that provides subscriptions for researchers to help search genealogy records in the United Kingdom. The site is run by Genealogy Supplies (Jersey) Ltd which is part of the S&N Group. Among its accomplishments, the company has completely transcribed the England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1911 inclusive. The site has been identified as among "the most prominent" subscription-based genealogy websites.
GenealogyBank.com is an online subscription genealogical service that provides access to records useful in family history research. GenealogyBank is one of the largest collections of digitized U.S. newspapers, dating back to 1690. In addition to digital newspaper archives, GenealogyBank also offers other online genealogy resources including the Social Security Death Index, obituaries, government publications, and historical books.
WikiTree is a genealogy website that allows users to research and to contribute to their own family trees while building and collaborating on a singular worldwide family tree within the same system. WikiTree is free for the user and financed via advertisements displayed to unregistered users. WikiTree is owned and hosted by founder's company Interesting.com, Inc.
Genealogy Today is a genealogical and historical record website focused primarily on the United States with limited records from Canada and several other European countries. The site contains over 4.3 million records from over 6,600 original documents, along with several thousand original articles and miscellaneous images. All information on this site is cataloged and searchable by name. The site offers a combination of free and subscription-based resources.
