A WEB SITE FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS

by Edward F. Holden

The proliferation in libraries of computers with public access to the Internet is a significant boon, not only to librarians, but also to those patrons who are unwilling, or unable, to invest several hundred dollars in equipment and be subject to additional monthly service and line fees. One group for whom access to the Web can be very productive is made up of people investigating their family histories. For example, on the day that this article was written, a search for the word "genealogy" on the Web yielded 138,794 entries. Libraries that have Internet access can provide an invaluable resource to ancestor hunters who do not possess the wherewithal at home to take advantage of this powerful electronic tool.

According to one Web site that specializes in genealogy on a rather modest scale, Cyndi's List of Genealogy on the Internet is the mother of all genealogy sites. Surfing other Web pages for genealogical sites and examining their content validates this comment. As of March 12th of this year, when it was last updated, Cyndi's List consisted of 27,450 links categorized and cross referenced in more than 70 categories. Between March 4, 1996 and March 15, 1998 this site received 2,167,800 hits.

Cyndi's extensive index ranging from Acadian to Wills and Deeds encompasses a comprehensive collection of subjects of genealogical significance. Municipalities and counties are listed for each of the 50 states with the addresses and phone numbers of town, city, and county clerks. Included within the 27,450 links are instructions for obtaining records from foreign countries, ships' passenger lists, naturalization records, vital records from various jurisdictions, addresses to which to write to obtain lists of researchers, descriptions of the holdings in the Library of Congress, and opportunities for family historians to submit queries as they search for elusive ancestors. An exhaustive listing of the resources available through the links in Cyndi's List would run on for page after page. The Web site address of this 90s source of genealogical information is http://www.CyndisList.com.