Ancestry Magazine

Is a visit to RootsWeb a part of your research routine? With all that it has to offer, you’ll want to return again and again.

Millions of family history enthusiasts around the world use RootsWeb.com to expand their research, share their accomplishments, and request help from fellow researchers. And no wonder. RootsWeb hosts the largest and most comprehensive collection of fre e genealogical resources available on the Internet.

Originally begun as a forum for genealogists to exchange e-mail via mailing lists, RootsWeb was founded by genealogists during the early days of the Internet in 1987. Today RootsWeb has grown far beyond its initial expectations into the largest grassroots genealogy community in the world.

In addition to the popular user-contributed databases, RootsWeb offers thousands of mailing lists and message boards, a free newsletter for genealogists, and even access to server space so you can set up your own family history website. Everything at RootsWeb is available free of charge and, most importantly, RootsWeb is a place for family historians around the world to share their work and connect with each other.

Among its various offerings, RootsWeb is perhaps most well-known for its databases, family trees, message boards, and mailing lists—all submitted, maintained, and organized by family historians like you.

“Where do I begin?” new users sometimes ask when they are faced with all the options available at RootsWeb. Begin with the most popular features listed here, and move forward from there. Without a doubt, you’ll have plenty to do!

User-Contributed Databases
The user-contributed databases are among the most unique offerings at RootsWeb. More than 11 million names appear in these files and the collection continues to grow.

Each data collection offers unique and valuable material that is available nowhere else, although few collections are comprehensive in names, records, and time frame.

The databases are divided into categories that range from book indexes and church records to mortality schedules and Native American records. You will also find databases organized by locality or ethnic group.

Searching from the homepage will allow you to search dozens of databases at once or you ca n choose to search just one collection at a time.

To learn how to submit your own databases to RootsWeb, click on the “Contributing Your Database to RootsWeb” link on the homepage.

Mailing Lists
Whether you are a new researcher or a more experienced one, you can jump-start your genealogical research by subscribing to one or more of RootsWeb’s 27,000 genealogy-related mailing lists on surnames, U.S. counties and states, other countries and regions, ethnic groups, and other topics.

A mailing list is like an e-mail party line: every message that a list subscriber sends to the list is distributed to all other list subscribers. Subscribing to a mailing list is one of the best ways of connecting to people who share your interests. If you do not find a mailing list covering your topic of interest, you may decide to start one.

Mailing lists may introduce you to cousins and other relatives who are working on the same branches of your family tree or who have connecting lines. While looking for information about my ancestors, I met a distant cousin through a locality mailing list. When her grandmother died, this cousin had discovered a trunk full of old photos and letters, letters that my great-grandfather had written to his wife’s family back in Kentucky with news about their young family and their everyday life in Arkansas in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

You may find some cousins who just happen to have old family Bibles, letters, photographs, or genealogical material that they or their relatives have compiled and are willing to share. One of them may even know Great-Auntie Gertrude, who has a cache of documents and priceless family stories.

Many brick walls are broken down through RootsWeb’s mailing lists. For example, one day I was browsing a surname mailing list and saw a query that a new researcher had posted. Within an hour I was able to send him nine generatio ns of his Dutch-American ancestors. This kind of sharing happens everyday on RootsWeb’s mailing lists.

You’ll find mailing lists devoted exclusively to the descendants of a specific individual as well as lists to provide technical help with RootsWeb resources, computer software, and general computer and Internet troubleshooting. The various volunteer organizations hosted by RootsWeb also have mailing lists. Most of these lists have long-time subscribers who will willingly answer your queries or direct you to someone who can.

You may also find unexpected answers in the mailing list archives. The archives hold the content of years of discussion on the mailing lists by family historians who have researched the subject matter of these various lists. The archives of the mailing lists are both browseable and searchable. Under Mailing Lists on the home page archives, just click on “Threaded Archives” for browseable archives or “Interactive Search” for searchable archives.

Message Boards
A message board is a computerized version of the old-fashioned bulletin board. There are more than 140,000 message boards on RootsWeb related to surnames, localities, and other topics. Type the name of the board you wish to locate into the “Find a Board” box. Select the Soundex option if you are searching for a surname board and are unsure of the spelling or are interested in variant spellings of the surname.

When you post a message to a board, others who are researching the same individual, locality, or subject can find you. To make your messages understandable, use the subject line to identify the content of your query, for example, “Seek parents of John Kelly, born 1842, Clay County, Kentucky.” Maiden names are commonly placed in parentheses. Remember to make your subject complete, concise, and specific. Avoid vague subjects such as “genealogy” or “looking for my grandfather.”

Since message boards a re read and used by researchers around the world, don’t assume that everyone knows what your abbreviations mean. Not everyone knows where or what “SF, CA” is. Spell it out so there’s no room for doubt.

To use the surname box, enter only the surnames included in the message. Separate each surname with a comma (the search is not case-sensitive). List surnames with common spelling variants such as Wood and Woods, not as Wood(s) or Wood/Woods.

WorldConnect
In 1999, after RootsWeb staff members and users submitted 5.5 million records during a four-week beta-testing period, the WorldConnect project came into being. It currently has more than 316 million records and continues to grow.

The WorldConnect project, one of the most popular features at RootsWeb, is a database of family trees submitted by thousands of mostly amateur family historians. It is the single largest collection of family trees on the Internet. Submitters create their GEDCOM files, submit them to WorldConnect, and WorldConnect displays the charts and reports derived from the information included in the GEDCOM file. Users can view the information in a variety of formats: descendency, pedigree, ahnentafel, and register.

Submitting your files to WorldConnect can have hidden benefits for you as well as for others. For instance, if your genealogy files were to become lost or corrupted, you could always download your own GEDCOM files via the “Retrieve GEDCOM” button on the WorldConnect setup page. All you need is your database password and user code. Also, when you are away from your home computer—at the Family History Library, for example, or at your hotel accommodations—you can easily view or download your GEDCOM from the Internet. Your files are always available!

RootsWeb Surname List
The RootsWeb Surname List, or RSL, is a registry of more than 1 million surname entries submitted by more than 250,000 online genealogists. Here, you can post your family’s surnames that you are currently researching. Given with each surname are dates (or a pertinent time frame), locations of where the families lived, and information about how to contact the person who submitted the surname.

The RSL is one of the primary tools on RootsWeb that genealogists use to contact each other and share information. Want to find out who else might be researching your family line? Check RSL and don’t forget to add your information to it so others can find you. If you are researching a family with the same surname, in the same area, and in a similar time frame, you might find it useful to contact the person who submitted the surname to share and compare notes. Just click on the submitter’s “nametag” to learn how to contact them. Some submitters have links to their personal webpages in addition to their e-mail and snail mail addresses.

The Guides
RootsWeb’s “Guide to Tracing Family Trees” was created by three professional genealogists who have diverse research backgrounds and expertise. The Guides are designed to give you a central place to learn about a variety of topics related to genealogical research. They are divided into individual topics and thirty lessons.

Topics range from “Where to Begin?” to “What’s in a Name?” You’ll also find lessons on various types of records and documents (e.g., tax records, the Social Security Death Index, census records, church records, fraternal organizations, even city directories and newspapers.) Other topics include heraldry, creating worthwhile genealogies, plus specifics on researching various ethnic groups.

Click on the link “RootsWeb’s Guide To Tracing Family Trees” under the Getting Started section on the home page to access these helpful tutorials.

RootsWeb Review
The premier issue of RootsWeb Review was publi shed in June 1998. Now, some 500,000 subscribers around the world receive the weekly e-zine. The RootsWeb Review provides news about what’s happening at RootsWeb, as well as information on its newest databases, mailing lists, homepages, and websites. It also includes tips on using the many resources at RootsWeb, along with stories and research tips from readers like you.

To subscribe to the newsletter, click on the “Subscribe” link on the homepage. You can also search and download RootsWeb Review back issues by clicking on the “View Archives” link on the homepage.

Free Web Pages
In 1999, RootsWeb began offering free Web space to genealogists. Today, more than 11,000 individuals maintain their family history or genealogical-related pages in the freepages (genealogy and history) area of RootsWeb.

Creating a basic website is not as difficult as you might imagine—many people have done it, thanks to easy-to-use HTML editing software. RootsWeb even offers an online editor for those who need some additional guidance.

If you want to build your own genealogy website on RootsWeb, simply request free space by clicking on the “Web Sites” tab on the homepage and following the directions provided.

With everything RootsWeb has to give—all offered freely by devoted family historians like you—there’s no reason not to take every advantage of its many resources. Gather up your list of brick walls and dead ends, and go spend some time on RootsWeb.com today.

Cool Tools
• Soundex Converter
The soundex converter gives you the Soundex code to any surname you enter. It also shows other surnames that share the code.
• Find-a-Place
Do you know the name of an ancestral U.S. town or city, but not the county? Just type in the name of the town or the city at Find-a-Place to learn the modern-day county location.
• U.S. State Resources
Browse for information by locality to discover sources and records you may have overlooked or never considered. Arranged by state, you’ll find information and links to many locality-specific sources.
• Post-Em Notes
Add a Post-em note to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), WorldConnect, or other databases at RootsWeb. A Post-em allows you to attach your e-mail address, a link to another website address, or other information to a record in a database.
• RootsLink
Add a link to your RootsWeb-hosted website using RootsLink, RootsWeb’s website registry. Users can link their website to any relevant surname, county, state, and/or country resource cluster.

Volunteer Projects Hosted at RootsWeb
Along with its variety of offerings, RootsWeb hosts several large volunteer projects. You can visit any of the projects by clicking on the link at the RootsWeb homepage.
• USGenWeb is a volunteer organization that works together to provide Internet websites for genealogical research in every county and state in the United States. This project is non-commercial and fully committed to free access for everyone.
• WorldGenWeb is similar to USGenWeb, but its scope is broader. It is a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization dedicated to providing genealogical and historical records and resources for worldwide access.
• FreeBMD aims to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages, and deaths for England and Wales and to provide free Internet access to them. It currently features more than 71 million distinct records.
• FreeREG provides free Internet searches of baptism, marriage, and burial records that have been extracted from the parish registers and non-conformist church records in the United Kingdom.
• Cyndi’s List, though not organized by volu nteers, is a categorized list of links to thousands of genealogical and historical websites.

Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, is the editor of RootsWeb Review and the author of several books. For many years she was a syndicated columnist and a feature writer for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Among her awards are the DAR Continental Congress Special Recognition Award and the National Genealogical Society’s Award of Merit for distinguished work in genealogy.