Essential Genealogy Sites

The style of this website is correctly defined by its title 'Access Genealogy'. Probably everything available here for the UK is equally readily available from GENUKI, but here you can move quickly between UK and US records, starting from the same homepage, which could prove useful.

A complete set of censuses on the internet, complete from 1851 to 1901.

The BBC is now a big player in the genealogy field.

Convenient for home research.

'… the internet is like a library with its books strewn all over the floor. I guess I'd like my list to be the card catalog for the genealogy section of that library.'

Worth a look if you are trying to locate county records offices.

A good resource for anyone searching for family records

The portal for anyone looking to start researching their family history in the UK.

The vital resource for all genealogists.

This is the real thing, the most indispensable online resource on the entire web. And it grows more and more impressive daily (look at What's New at the top of the left-hand margin).

A vital website for any family history enthusiast, which should persuade you of the value of joining your local FHS.

A truly impressive resource, essential for genealogists

This is a big, big site with plenty of useful material to offer, which makes it a good place to start if you are going to tackle American sites at all. The online Glossary is particularly handy.

The most complete, most user-friendly general site for British users. It is impossible to convey the diversity of the information this site presents to you, so spend plenty of time exploring. If you can't find anything to help you here, you're in trouble indeed.

If the right issue of the particular magazine you want to consult is available here, then this is a most useful way of reading it, without having to move from your computer. Surely more and more material will be made available on the Internet in this way, as the technology for the process advances.

This redesigned and now very effective site, which also covers official UK statistics, has links to Northern Ireland and Scottish equivalents, which are reviewed seperately in Regional Resources.

Origins offers a very impressive search facility with its newly upgraded Origin Search

Sometimes the print is too small and sometimes a coloured background makes reading difficult but, with a little adjustment, this can be a truely useful gateway.

An easy-to-use messaging forum for everyone researching their family history.

The commitment of RootsWeb to a completely free service deserves wholehearted support, and the constantly improving quality of the resources, as well as the increasingly international nature (as opposed to mainly American) of the information it contains, will make this a favourite.

The website of the General Register Office, from where you can order certificates for births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales since 1837.

Spectacular improvements to the website of the British National Archives make it indispensable to the genealogist.

A brilliantly simple, rapid site for finding out what material the Society owns, where to find it and what other organisations to approach.

A good guide to local and central government departments.