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 Family History Library (FHL) 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.
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. The Family History Department was originally established in 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) and is the largest genealogy organization in the world.FamilySearch maintains a collection of records, resources, and services designed to help people learn more about their family history. Facilitating the performance of LDS ordinances for deceased relatives is another major aim of the organization. Although it requires user account registration, it offers free access to its resources and service online at FamilySearch.org. In addition, FamilySearch offers personal assistance at more than 5,100 family history centers in 140 countries, including the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Family Tree section allows user-generated content to be contributed to the genealogical database. As of February 2021, there are over 1.3 billion individuals in the tree and the historical records database contains over 5.7 billion digital images, including digitized books, digitized microfilm, and other digital records.
The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is a database of death records created from the United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File Extract. Most persons who have died since 1936 who had a Social Security Number (SSN) and whose death has been reported to the Social Security Administration are listed in the SSDI. For most years since 1973, the SSDI includes 93 percent to 96 percent of deaths of individuals aged 65 or older. It is frequently updated; the version of June 22, 2011, contained 89,835,920 records.
Ancestry.com LLC is a privately held online company based in Lehi, Utah, United States. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is an online, public collection of documents and media about the history and culture of the state of Georgia, United States. The collection includes more than a million digitized objects from more than 200 Georgia-related collections. The DLG connects users to content from 65 libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other institutions, as well as 100 agencies of state government. It can be searched or browsed through the Digital Library of Georgia website.
Family Tree Magazine is a publication about genealogy and family history published by Yankee Publishing, Inc. in Blue Ash, Ohio and Dublin, New Hampshire. It has a paid circulation of about 70,000. The first issue was published in 2000, with David A. Fryxell as editor and later editor-in-chief. Allison (Stacy) Dolan and Diane Haddad also served as editors for the publication. Current editor Andrew Koch took on the role in December 2018.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is the oldest and largest genealogical society in the United States, founded in 1845.
MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with web, mobile, and software products and services that was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company MyHeritage in 2003. Users of the platform can create family trees, upload and browse through photos, and search through over 13 billion historical records, among other features. As of 2020, the service supports 42 languages and has more than 50 million users worldwide who have built around 52 million family trees. In 2016, it launched a genetic testing service called MyHeritage DNA. The company is headquartered in Or Yehuda, Israel with additional offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, Lehi, Utah, Kyiv, Ukraine, and Burbank, California.
JewishGen is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 as an international electronic resource for Jewish genealogy. In 2003, JewishGen became an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. It provides amateur and professional genealogists with the tools to research their Jewish family history and heritage.
The Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) began as part of the United States Newspaper Program (USNP), a cooperative effort between the states and the federal government designed to catalog and preserve on microfilm the nation's historic newspaper heritage. The USNP was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and administered by the Library of Congress, who are currently funding the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), of which the INP is also a part.
Trove is an Australian online library database aggregator and service which includes full text documents, digital images, bibliographic and holdings data of items which are not available digitally, and a free faceted-search engine as a discovery tool. The database includes archives, images, newspapers, official documents, archived websites, manuscripts and other types of data. Hosted by the National Library of Australia in partnership with content providers, including members of the National and State Libraries Australia, it is one of the most well-respected and accessed GLAM services in Australia, with over 70,000 daily users.
The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding or TNG is a genealogy software installed in a web server developed by Darrin Lythgoe. It was mentioned in several press reviews used for genealogy site building. The data is stored in MySQL database tables and displayed in PHP scripting language which can be a module in different content management system platforms.
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.
Heritage Microfilm, Inc. is a preservation microfilm and microfilm digitization business located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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.
WikiTree, a free, shared social-networking genealogy website, allows users individually to research and to contribute to their own personal family trees while building and collaborating on a singular worldwide family tree within the same system. Chris Whitten, developer of the WikiAnswers website, set up WikiTree in 2008; the site is owned and hosted by Interesting.com, Inc. The site uses a “wiki markup" language that offers users the ability to create and edit personal profiles, categories and "free space" pages to document their family's history. As of January 2021 the WikiTree website had more than 770,000 registered members and included more than 25.7 million ancestral profiles, with over 7.2 million having DNA connections. GenealogyInTime Magazine listed WikiTree as the 15th most popular genealogy site in January 2016.
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.
The Family History Research Wiki provides handbook reference information, and educational articles to help genealogists find and interpret records of their ancestors. It is a free-access, free-content, online encyclopedia on a wiki, hosted as part of the FamilySearch site. It is sponsored by FamilySearch, a non-profit organization, and a genealogical arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Anyone with access to the Internet may read any of the over 91,000 articles, and almost all articles can be edited by registered users (contributors). Registration is free.
Geneanet is a genealogy website with 4 million members. The database consists of data added by participants and is intended for all genealogists. The website is collaborative and the data added by the members are available for free to any interested people. An optional annual subscription provides additional search options and additional records.
