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.
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); it is the largest genealogy organization in the world.
YIVO is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. Established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט, pronounced[ˈjidiʃɛrˈvisn.ʃaftlɛχɛrinstiˈtut], Yiddish Scientific Institute.
Gedenkdienst is the concept of facing and taking responsibility for the darkest chapters of one's own country's history while ideally being financially supported by one's own country's government to do so. Founded in Austria in 1992 by Andreas Maislinger, the Gedenkdienst is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service as well as a volunteering platform for Austrians to work in Holocaust and Jewish culture-related institutions around the world with governmental financial support. In Austria it is also referred to as Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service provided by the Austrian Service Abroad. The Austrian Gedenkdienst serves the remembrance of the crimes of Nazism, commemorates its victims and supports Jewish cultural future. The program is rooted in the acknowledgment of responsibility by the Austrian government for the crimes committed by National Socialism.
A royal descent is a genealogical line of descent from a past or present monarch.
Welsh Americans are an American ethnic group whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Wales, United Kingdom. In the 2008 U.S. Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh ancestry, 0.6% of the total U.S. population. This compares with a population of 3 million in Wales. However, 3.8% of Americans appear to bear a Welsh surname.
Swiss Americans are Americans of Swiss descent.
FamilySearch Centers (FSCs), formerly Family History Centers (FHCs), are branches of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The centers supply resources for research and study of genealogy and family history. As of 2023, there are more than 5,700 FHCs in 145 countries.
The BYU Family History Library (FHL) is located in the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It is one of the Family History Centers devoted to assisting library patrons in genealogical research. It began as a small section of the BYU library in 1962, and later expanded into a branch of the Family History Library, the genealogical library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in 1964. It was formerly known as the Utah Valley Regional Family History Center. The BYU FHL houses a large collection of physical materials, such as microfilms, photographs, books, and other documents. It also offers access to digital materials, including genealogical databases and digitized newspapers. Scanners, computers, and printers are also available. The BYU FHL assists patrons online through its website, YouTube channel, and hosted webinars. It also offers classes in a variety of areas related to genealogy.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is the oldest and largest genealogical society in the United States, founded in year 1845.
FamilySearch Indexing is a volunteer project established and run by FamilySearch, a genealogy organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The project aims to create searchable digital indexes of scanned images of historical documents that are relevant to genealogy. The documents include census records, birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, military and property records, and other vital records maintained by local, state, and national governments. However, to access the billions of names that appear on these images, indexes are needed to be able to search them efficiently.
WeRelate.org is an American wiki genealogy website that provides genealogy tools and data. WeRelate is a non-profit and is funded by tax-deductible donations and is managed by unpaid volunteers. WeRelate had over 2 million person pages by March 2011 and claimed to be the "world's largest genealogy wiki".
Research institutes connected with BYU in the present or past include:
The Compendium of American Genealogy, First Families of America (1925–1942), by Frederick Adams Virkus, is a seven volume collection of American lineage records intended as a standard genealogical history of the United States. The records span eight or nine generations from the early 17th century to the mid-20th. Originally a project of Marquis's Who's Who in America, it was later taken over by Virkus's own Institute of American Genealogy. Virkus guided the publication of the Compendium for more than two decades with the intention of producing a genealogical encyclopedia of the “first families of America”. It is a major source of information on immigrants to America before 1750. According to Tyler's Quarterly “practically every name distinguished in the early history of the country will be found within its pages”.
Casper Shafer was among the first settlers of the village of Stillwater along the Paulins Kill in Sussex County, New Jersey in the United States. A successful miller and early tavern owner, Shafer later served in the first sessions of the New Jersey Legislature during the American Revolution. During these sessions, New Jersey had become a newly independent state, established the first state constitution, ordered the state's last Royal Governor deposed and arrested, and actively supported and financed the Continental Army.
The German Emigrants Database is a research project on European emigration to the United States of America. It is hosted by the Historisches Museum Bremerhaven. The database contains information about individuals who emigrated during the period of 1820-1939 mainly through German ports towards the United States. The aim of the GED is to make the collected data available to historical and social science research worldwide. Furthermore, the GED enables socio-statistical evaluations of emigrant data. In addition, the GED allows interested people to look for immigrant ancestors. The German Emigrants Database is financed by private donations and income generated by the database. Thus it receives no public subsidy. The revenues will be used entirely for the further expansion of the database. Legal and financial holder of the GED is the charitable “Association of Friends of the Historisches Museum Bremerhaven e.V.”
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 may read any of the articles, and almost all articles can be edited by registered users (contributors); registration is free.
Miriam Weiner is an American genealogist, author, and lecturer who specializes in the research of Jewish roots in Poland and the former Soviet Union. Weiner is considered to be one of the pioneers of contemporary Jewish genealogy through her work to open up archives and is described as a trail-blazing, highly respected guide and leading authority on archival holdings and resources in pre-war Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine.
Roger P. Minert was a professor of family history at Brigham Young University (BYU) until he retired in 2019. He is a professional genealogist and an emeritus AG. He has a background in German language study and has published reference books for genealogy work on German immigrants, guides on performing German genealogy research, and books about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany. He frequently presents on German family history topics at genealogy conferences.
The GG Archives is a large, privately held archive of genealogy, military, and other ephemera dating from the mid-1800s through 2000. The site has over 6,000 static web pages and 20,000 images. The archives are composed of artificial collections of ephemera in twelve topical areas. The site has since received numerous awards.
