Ancestry Magazine

Ten years ago, Ancestry.com opened its virtual doors to the public by putting searchable versions of a few family history-related databases online. But Ancestry.com wasn’t the only digital visionary in the family history field back then. See who else is turning ten this year:

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (EOGN)
How did we ever do without Dick Eastman’s newsletter? If you ever struggled to keep current on all the innovations of the last decade, then surely you are a reader of the EOGN, which sent its inaugural issue in January of 1996. Dick’s newsletter has kept us up to date on technology releases (both genealogical and non-genealogical), changes of ownership in the various software companies, consumer scams, new websites, upcoming conferences, and anything else of interest.

True to form as both a reporter and an adopter of new technologies, Dick’s newsletter is now a blog and can be imported daily to your newsreader. How’s that for a sign of the times?

Cyndi’s List
Ten years ago, when we were all drowning in a sea of information, Cyndi Howells threw us a life preserver in the form of Cyndi’s List, a simple and straightforward annotated list of genealogical websites, organized by category. Thankfully, Cyndi’s website has grown in size but not in complexity—it’s still a great tool for finding just the website you need.

AncestrySearch
While Ancestry.com did not collect its first dollar until April 1997, the company spent the year prior experimenting with online databases as AncestrySearch. You can see the evolution of this popular website by searching for Ancestry.com using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Ancestry Reference Library
GenTech in 1996 was held in Plano, Texas and saw the introduction of the first fully-searchab le reference CD-ROM, containing five of Ancestry Publishing’s great reference tomes, including The Source and Red Book.

Ancestors PBS Television Series
The Ancestors TV series did not air until early 1997, but most of the filming for the ten-episode series occurred in 1996. Hosts Jim and Terry Willard took a PBS audience though everything from census and marriage records to finding long-lost relatives.

USGenWeb Project
Based on a successful prototype for Kentucky, the USGenWeb project celebrates its tenth birthday this year. The project is perhaps the best, first example of how the World Wide Web can enlist hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to organize information, finding aids, and records for the rest of us.