Tag: beginners

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Methodology, Sources and resources

Find More Family History Websites to Broaden Your Search

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When you’re building your family tree, it’s tempting to stick with familiar websites like Ancestry, FamilySearch, or Findmypast. These platforms are excellent starting points, but they’re just that – starting points.

Here’s why you need to explore more family history websites: By broadening your search and using a wider range of sources, you’ll gather more information and evidence. This helps fill research gaps, expands your family stories, and strengthens your conclusions through corroboration.

Different websites hold different sources. What you can’t find on Ancestry might be sitting on a volunteer-run site or a small institutional archive.

This post was originally published in October 2024 and last updated on 2 August 2025

12+ Family History Websites to Consider

Here are some examples of sites to explore:

Government Archives or Libraries

IrishGenealogy.ie provides free access to Irish civil birth, marriage, and death records. The site covers different date ranges depending on the record type, making it essential for Irish research.

UK National Archives Discovery serves as the catalogue for UK government records. You’ll find digitised content alongside references to physical holdings at Kew and other repositories.

Archives Portal Europe acts as a gateway to European archives across dozens of countries. Use this to locate records held in institutions you might never have heard of.

Trove (Australia) offers newspapers, images, maps, and more from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives. The newspaper collection alone spans over 150 years.

Volunteer and Nonprofit Projects

USGenWeb provides state-by-state collections of records, cemetery indexes, and family submissions across the United States. Each state site is maintained by volunteers with local knowledge.

GENUKI serves as an essential guide to genealogy sources for the UK and Ireland, with county-by-county breakdowns of available records.

Visual and Photo Archives

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) aggregates millions of items from US libraries, museums, and archives. Search across photographs, maps, letters, and documents from hundreds of institutions simultaneously.

Europeana provides access to cultural heritage materials from across Europe. You’ll find photographs, maps, letters, and other materials that might show your ancestors’ communities and daily life.

Academic and Specialist Projects

Digital Panopticon focuses on British and Australian convict records and criminal justice data. If you have convict ancestors, this site offers detailed tracking of individual cases.

London Lives covers a wide range of original sources about eighteenth-century London, particularly focusing on ordinary Londoners rather than the wealthy elite.

Personal and Community Sites

Judy Webster’s Genealogy Tips and Indexes provides indexes to Australian historical records and other genealogy resources, maintained by an experienced Australian researcher.

GeneaBloggers serves as a directory of genealogy blogs across many themes and regions. These blogs often highlight local sources and research techniques.

The Workhouse offers comprehensive material about UK workhouses, including admission records, photographs, and historical context.

Tip: Bookmark sites relevant to your research interests. Add them to a research log in your preferred system – whether that’s Notion, family history software, or a spreadsheet.

How to Discover More Family History Websites

Once you’ve explored these suggestions, here are strategies for finding sites tailored to your specific research needs:

Use Genealogy Portals and Directories

The FamilySearch Wiki includes country, region, and topic guides with links to relevant sources and websites. Start with their research guides for your locations.

Cyndi’s List is one of the most comprehensive directories of genealogy websites, organised by category and region.

CoraWeb offers Australian genealogy links curated by a librarian. The site includes both well-known and obscure Australian sources.

These portals will help you find local archives, church collections, and specialised databases.

Learn from Other Researchers

Check the citations in published family trees, research articles, or genealogy books. Which websites are other researchers using for your areas of interest?

Follow genealogy bloggers and join social media communities focused on your research regions. Experienced researchers regularly share discoveries of useful websites.

Contact Local Experts

Reach out to local or regional libraries in areas you’re researching. Many maintain useful collections. Historical societies often have their own websites with unique local records and indexes.

Use Strategic Search Terms

When searching with Google or other search engines, try these combinations:

  • Location + record type + “online” (e.g., “Yorkshire baptism records online”)
  • Surname + location + “genealogy site”
  • Record type + “digital collection”
  • Location + “historical society” + “records”

Experiment with different search engines, including AI searches, as they may produce different results than Google.

Target your search by focusing on your research questions and the information needed, before considering which sources you need.

Attend Training and Conferences

Genealogy lectures, webinars, and society newsletters often introduce useful websites. Take notes during sessions. Even sites that seem irrelevant now might prove valuable later.

Many genealogy societies maintain resource lists that include lesser known but valuable websites.

Organise Your Website Collection

As you discover more sites, create a system to track them:

Use organised bookmarks. Create folders by country, topic, or research goal (e.g., “Ireland,” “Military Records,” “Immigration”).

Maintain a master list in your research log, spreadsheet, or Notion workspace. Include notes about what makes each site useful: “Land records before 1830” or “Transcribed church registers only.”

Record specific pages. Consider bookmarking the exact page you used, not just the homepage.

Why This Matters for Your Research

The internet contains thousands of family history websites beyond the major commercial platforms. Many are built by volunteers, libraries, or institutions committed to preserving local history.

These smaller sites often contain unique records, indexes, or transcriptions you won’t find elsewhere. They might hold the exact piece of evidence that breaks through your research barrier. And they may be free.

Remember: comprehensive family history research requires comprehensive source searching. The more websites you explore, the more complete and accurate your family history becomes.

What’s Next?

Start with the websites listed above that match your research interests. Then use the discovery strategies to find sites specific to your family’s locations and time periods.

What’s the most useful family history website you’ve discovered recently? Share your finds with other researchers – we all benefit when we share our discoveries.

More of my tips about family history websites

How to make your search for family history sources easier

Analysing family history sources: Study the repositories

Nine reasons why you cannot find family history sources

About the Author

Danielle Lautrec is a genealogy educator, researcher, and author of The Good Genealogist. With qualifications in history, family history, and historical archaeology, she teaches for the Society of Australian Genealogists.

News

Research Methods courses

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The Research Methods courses that I run for the Society of Australian Genealogists will be on again in 2024.

There is a beginners’ course and an intermediate course. The intermediate course is aimed at people who have been researching for about three years or more.

Both courses focus on developing your research skills, so that you can become better at family history. They cover a lot of the content that is in my book, The Good Genealogist, which was published in 2022. The courses go into more detail about the concepts and techniques, and help you practice them by applying them to your family history.

Participants in the intermediate course choose a case study and work on it for the duration of the course. Participants in the beginner course can apply the techniques to any part of their family history. Workshops in both courses allow everyone to share their discoveries and receive feedback about their progress.

These courses will have a bit more DNA content than previous years, as past participants have all been keen to integrate DNA into their research. So if you are thinking of booking and have not yet had your DNA tested, you might like to do so – though it is not compulsory!

Who can attend?

The courses are open to everyone. They are conducted online using Zoom and are not specific to any particular country. The techniques can be applied to any family history research.

Questions?

If you have any questions before booking, please contact me through the Contact form on the About page.

Dates and bookings

Intermediate course, Cohort 1 – January to April

Intermediate course, Cohort 2 – July to October Book here

Beginners course – June to December  Book here Late bookings are accepted. Contact the Society.

More information

For my articles about research methods for family history, go to the Research Methods page.

For articles about resources and tools for family history, go to the Resources page.

Post last updated 11 June 2024

Sources and resources

Ancestry Tags, Notes and Comments

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If you have a family tree on Ancestry you may find Tags, Notes and Comments features useful in planning and documenting your research.

What are Tags, Notes and Comments?

Tags, Notes and Comments are placed on the profiles of individuals in your family tree. Tags appear under the individual’s name at the top of the profile and are added by clicking on the pencil icon. Notes and Comments can be accessed under the Tools menu. If you have activated the Research Tools toolbar, you can access them from the menu that appears under the individual’s name on their profile.

Tags (white oval shapes), pencil icon next to them. Research Tools toolbar under the Tags.
Tools Menu in top right corner of a profile, opens the screen on the right.

Using Tags

Tags are basically labels that are placed on a profile to identify a characteristic of that person or highlight an aspect of your research into that person. Tags are useful visual indicators of information that you judge important.

For example, if you add a ‘Direct Ancestor’ tag to all the profiles on your direct line, as you navigate around your tree you can instantly see if the individual you are viewing is a direct ancestor.

You can also use a Tag as a filter when you search your tree and call up everyone in your tree with that tag. For example, I add a Custom Tag (see below) ‘Convict’, to the profiles of individuals in my tree that came to Australia as convicts.

When I want to research my convicts, I can bring up a list of all of them using that Tag. This list cannot be printed, but you can create and save an image, as I have done below.

List of people with my Custom Tag, ‘Convict’ (first 5 only, I have a lot of convicts!)

Other Tags that I find useful

I add the ‘DNA Match’ Tag to anyone in my tree who is a DNA match. Then I add the ‘Common DNA Ancestor’ Tag to the ancestor or ancestral couple who we are both descended from.

I also add the ‘DNA Connection’ Tag to each profile along the line from that match to our shared ancestor. This helps me trace the line of our connection. It also provides information for other DNA matches if they access my tree to determine how they may be related to me.

I use my Ancestry tree as a research tool. This means that there are individuals and information in the tree for which I do not yet have sufficient evidence. If other researchers want to copy individuals or information from my tree they should verify the information themselves. However, I like to be helpful and draw their attention to anything that is not yet verified or where I have doubts.

If the questionable information is about a particular event, I can put a statement or TBC in the description field of that event. However, if the entire individual is questionable then I can add the ‘Unverified’ Tag to the profile. This also helps my own research as it reminds me where the evidence is insufficient.

Standard Tags and Custom Tags

Standard Tags are those defined by Ancestry and are available for use on all family trees. Custom Tags are those that you define for a particular tree. If you want to use them on other trees, you need to define them for each one. (Ancestry Help article)

Searching a tree by Tags

You can search your tree for everyone with a particular Tag or a combination of multiple Tags. (See above Ancestry Help article for instructions)

Using Notes and Comments

Ancestry suggests that you use Notes and Comments to record information, stories, tasks and thoughts. They could also be used to plan your research and list research questions, hypotheses and research tasks.

Privacy

Notes are private and Comments are public. Only you and anyone that you invite to your tree as Editor can see your Notes.

If your tree is public, then anyone can see the Comments (except on profiles of living people). That means you can add draft conclusions or thoughts to your Notes without worrying who might see or copy them. You might prefer to do that, rather than adding unverified information to a profile.

Printing

While you can print both Notes and Comments when you print a profile from your tree, only the Notes are included if you download your tree as a GEDCOM file.

I ran a test on one of my trees with Notes and Comments, then imported the file into Legacy family tree. The Notes were successfully incorporated into the Notes section of the individual but the Comments were not. Similarly, Tags were not included when I downloaded the tree from Ancestry.

The fact that Notes can be printed with a profile and are included when you download a copy of your tree makes them a good tool for documenting your research.

However, the downside is that Notes can only be attached to a single individual and I believe that research should be planned at the family level or higher. If you were able to compile all the Notes for a family group that would help, but unfortunately you cannot.

In my view, Notes and Comments are useful tools, but they are not a decent alternative to a research plan.

More information

For more of my articles on documenting your family history, go to the Document page.

For more of my articles about analysing sources, go to the Analyse page.

For more of my articles and information about using DNA in family history, head to my DNA in family history page.

Post last updated 11 June 2024

Methodology, News

My new course: Beginners Research Methods

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Starting to research your family history is exciting, but it can also be a bit daunting. Television shows and advertisements make it sound easy – get your DNA tested then type in a name – but it quickly becomes clear that there is more to it than that. Much more. Especially if you do not have a background in historical research and are not good with computers.

Researching your family history successfully and with enjoyment requires you to learn new skills. You also need to gain new knowledge about ways to find information and how to document it properly.

You can learn to do almost anything by reading books, attending lectures and practicing the techniques. But you risk making mistakes that are not corrected, establishing bad habits and going astray. And then you give up. Or you create a family history that makes no sense and is full of people that are not related to you at all. Yeah, we have seen those family trees all over the internet.

When we start something new, whether it be a new job, learning guitar or researching our family history, it always helps to have someone who can explain things, review your attempts and answer your questions. In my new course for the Society of Australian Genealogists, I will teach you the skills and techniques, but I will also be there for you while you apply the techniques and research your family history for a period of eight months.

After that time, if you need more help, there are a wide range of lectures and other courses offered by the Society. If you are a member of the Society, you can also join the Society’s Facebook group where you will have the support of a wonderful community of genealogists.

The Beginners Research Methods course is suitable for complete beginners and also for those who have already started but need some assistance. The course starts 17 January. Booking and a course outline are available on the Society’s website.

Methodology

Asking the right family history research questions

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You probably have hundreds of questions about your family history that you want answers for, but you cannot work on them all at once.

How do you decide which question to pursue first and are you asking the right research questions?

Find the meaning of a family history research question

If you already have questions, and I am sure you do, here are some questions about your questions. They will help you work out if you have the right questions and which ones need to be answered first.

  • Why do you need to answer this question? What information will it reveal?
  • How is it important is that information to your research?
  • Will it fill a gap in your family tree or your knowledge?
  • Will it provide vital information to allow you to move back another generation?
  • Will it resolve an inconsistency or clarify something important?
  • Will it solve a mystery?
  • Or is it just something that you find interesting?

If you cannot answer these questions, then perhaps you do not have right questions. Jump down to the Goals section below. Write or review your goals first, then write new questions.

Four people standing in a row thinking about questions

Prioritise your research questions

Knowing why questions need to be answered does not just help you ask the right questions, it also helps you determine which questions are more important and which need to be answered first.

A plan numbered 1 to 4, with lines to write next to each number

In family history research you will often have a chain of questions. As one is answered, it opens up more. Or, it may be that you need to answer some questions first before you can find the answers to related questions.

Getting your questions into the right order will save you time and help you progress your research more accurately.

Prioritising questions is all about creating a systematic order which you then apply to your research.

Target your research questions to achieve your goals

If the questions listed above are not enough to help you prioritise your questions, then you need to revisit your goals.

Notepad labelled Goals, with 1. 2. 3.

Goals are broad aims or areas of interest. They tend to take more than a year to achieve.

Goals provide context and meaning to our research questions.

Examples of goals

  • I’d like to get my family tree back as far as I can in time
  • I’d like to explore the families of my early convicts and settlers
  • My father was adopted – I’d like to trace his biological family

Group your questions under the relevant goal. A goal is relevant to your question if answering that question will help you achieve the goal. A question can be relevant to more than one goal.

Work out which goal is the most important to you at the moment and then focus on the questions listed below it.

For more of my articles about planning your family history, go to the Plan page.

Post last updated 30 April 2025