This is a list of genealogy databases and online resources that are not specifically restricted to a particular place, family set, or time period in their content.
Project | Description |
---|---|
Ancestry.com | For-profit genealogy company. Databases include Find a Grave, RootsWeb, a free genealogy community, and Newspapers.com. |
Archives.gov | US National Archives and Records Administration. Free online repository with a section dedicated to genealogical research [1] |
BALSAC | Population database of Quebec, Canada |
Cyndi's List | Thousands of resource links, categorized and cross-referenced |
Familypedia | Free cooperative family history wiki using Semantic MediaWiki |
FamilySearch | Images and indexes developed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints |
Find a Grave | Online database of cemetery records (over 152 million burial records and 75 million photos) |
Findmypast | The largest website for digitalized and transcribed British records |
Fold3 | Online repository, formerly known as Footnote, focusing on military records; owned by Ancestry.com |
FreeBMD | Index of births, marriages and deaths (BMD) for England and Wales from 1837 to 1983 |
Geneanet | French genealogical website of more than 3 million members and some digitized archival records |
GENUKI | Information covering the British Isles |
Library and Archives Canada | Official archives of Canada, census records, government records, books, newspapers, images, and more |
MyHeritage | Aggregated search system and genealogy databases |
National Archives of Ireland | The official repository for the state records of Ireland including census records, wills and administrations, plus other genealogy records |
New England Historic Genealogical Society | America's oldest genealogical society, provides education and research resources with over 1.4 billion records [2] |
Rodovid | Global genealogy in many languages, genealogy wiki |
Serbian Genealogical Society | Online database with surnames, locations and background information |
TheGenealogist | Records mainly covering the British Isles |
Trackuback | Online context based genealogy visualization including cultural timeline and old maps |
WeRelate | Genealogy wiki and sourced collaborative, referenced place index, sponsored by Allen County Public Library and the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy |
WikiTree | Free genealogy community dedicated to building a worldwide family tree accessible to everyone |
GEDmatch | For comparisons of autosomal DNA data files from different testing companies. Used by law enforcement to identify suspects. |
Some of these also have social networking features.
Web site | Alexa traffic rank as of 2015 [3] | Free features | Features for subscribers |
---|---|---|---|
Ancestry.com | 457 |
| Subscriber benefits vary by subscription class. [4] |
FamilySearch | 2471 |
| — |
Geneanet | 9814 |
|
|
Genes Reunited | 64853 (1795 GB) |
|
|
Geni.com | 6114 |
|
|
MyHeritage | 4214 |
|
|
Rodovid | 217,138 |
| — |
Trackuback |
|
| |
WeRelate | 203,422 (38022 US) |
| Donation-supported |
WikiTree | 20,423 (8755 US) |
| — |
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.
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Genetic genealogy is the use of genealogical DNA tests, i.e., DNA profiling and DNA testing, in combination with traditional genealogical methods, to infer genetic relationships between individuals. This application of genetics came to be used by family historians in the 21st century, as DNA tests became affordable. The tests have been promoted by amateur groups, such as surname study groups or regional genealogical groups, as well as research projects such as the Genographic Project.
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.
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to establish legally defined racial population groups. By contrast, many tribes do not include blood quantum as part of their own enrollment criteria.
A genealogical DNA test is a DNA-based genetic test used in genetic genealogy that looks at specific locations of a person's genome in order to find or verify ancestral genealogical relationships, or to estimate the ethnic mixture of an individual. Since different testing companies use different ethnic reference groups and different matching algorithms, ethnicity estimates for an individual vary between tests, sometimes dramatically.
Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of human and pet cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience." Volunteers can create memorials, upload photos of grave markers or deceased persons, transcribe photos of headstones, and more. As of 2023, the site claimed more than 226 million memorials.
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
Family Tree Maker is genealogy software for Windows and Mac that allows the researcher to keep track of information collected during research and to create reports, charts, and books containing that information. The software was originally developed by Kenneth Hess of Banner Blue Software, which was purchased by Broderbund in 1995. It passed through the hands of The Learning Company, SoftKey, Mattel, and others before coming under its current ownership. A redesigned Family Tree Maker 2008 was released on August 14, 2007. The 2009 version of the program corrected some of the errors and omissions of its predecessor, and introduced a few new features. Family Tree Maker 2010 claimed to further enhance the radical redesign and be more powerful and feature-packed with faster navigation and quicker load times.
Charles Ready was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Tennessee's 5th congressional district.
FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA. FamilyTreeDNA as a division of Gene by Gene were acquired by MYDNA, Inc., an Australian company, in January 2021.
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 Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF) was an independent DNA and genealogical research institution with the goal of demonstrating how the peoples of the world are related. SMGF collected DNA samples and genealogical information from individuals across the globe to establish these connections.
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.
Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, born October 9, is an American genealogist, author, and speaker. She is also a consultant for the FBI and NCIS.
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 Canada 1921 census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. The census count was taken as at June 1, 1921. The total population count was 8,788,483 representing a 22% increase over the 1911 census population count of 7,206,643. The 1921 census was the sixth comprehensive decennial census since Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. The previous census was the Northwest Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba 1916 census and the following census was the Northwest Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba 1926 census.
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.
The ancestral background of presidents of the United States has been relatively consistent throughout American history. With the exception of Martin Van Buren and perhaps Dwight D. Eisenhower, every president has ancestors from the British Isles, which in turn makes many of them distantly related to one another. Kennedy was of pure Irish descent, Van Buren was of Dutch lineage; and Eisenhower was of German and Swiss heritage. Barack Obama is the only president to have ancestry from outside Western Europe; his paternal family is of the Luo people of East Africa. He is also believed to be a direct descendant of John Punch, a colonial-era slave born in modern-day Cameroon. Despite speculation, there is no evidence that any of the United States’ presidents have had any Indigenous American ancestry.