Internet Genealogy

I am amazed when I think of how many new genealogical records have been added to the 'net in the past 14 years. Fourteen years ago, wondering what I was going to do with this new-fangled tool that I had been given (the Internet), I typed the word "Genealogy" into a search box on Prodigy, and that launched me into online genealogy--something I haven't quit doing in all this time. Prodigy had their Message Boards, and I quickly located a few for the surnames that I research. Millet was one, and Allen was another one. I made great strides in the year that I was on Prodigy, and then my dear brother decided that I was ready for the "real" Internet.

This is where I discovered "real" online records. The first ones I discovered were census records on a Darke County Ohio web site, run by my online friend, Wally Garchow. Discovered some Millet's on some of the census transcriptions, and saved them "just in case" they were part of my family. Years later, thanks to Rootsweb Message Boards and mailing lists, it was confirmed that they were a part of my Millet line.

In 1996 I was invited to become part of the USGenWeb Project, an ambitious project to create a web site for every county in the United States. I knew nothing of html or web site publishing, but a wonderful volunteer named Nancy Trice held my hand through the process, and Marshall County, Kansas was added to the Project. I felt so good about this that I adopted two more counties in Ohio, my home county in Washington state, and just last December, two more in Colorado. While the USGenWeb Project has grown by leaps and bounds in nearly 13 years, other entities have been added to the game.

Many states have begun to digitize their records and you can find actual images online for Missouri marriages and deaths. Washington state will undoubtedly have their death certificates online soon (currently there is a good index for them). Utah has online records--actual images too. There are other states with online records, and of course the LDS Church has been indexing from their vast collection of microfilmed records and putting the images online for better than a year now.

Thus I can open up my genealogy program, select a family, and go online to find records and information about them. Over the past few days I've been looking at my Hobb/Hobbs line, found in Missouri. This is my stepdad's paternal grandmother's parents. How incredible it is to find a marriage license and application--actual image--online for them, to save and to print out for my files.

Looking for cemetery or tombstone records? You'll find them online, affiliated with the USGenWeb's Tombstone Project, or at interment.net and findagrave.com. We truly live in a wonderous age, and locating our ancestors has become MUCH easier now than when I started nearly 41 years ago. I expect that as time passes, we'll see even more miracles in the field of "Internet Genealogy."