Last month, we explored finding our ancestors in newspapers and several of the newspaper databases — which can be key to discovering details of your ancestors life that you can’t find elsewhere. Today I want to share some other genealogical databases that are more general.
First, a reminder of an important principle of genealogy: the need for documenting our families with accurate information. Family stories are a good start, but an axiom for genealogists (and journalists) is “trust but verify.” We need to support those beliefs with evidence found in records.
This column will briefly describe the major databases, and I’ll likely come back to them to do a more in-depth look in later columns.
Virtually all databases require you to create an account, whether free or paid. Those that require a paid subscription usually offer a free trail. They all have search engines, but most (if not all) databases have a significant number of records that are not indexed. And if they’re not indexed, they will be invisible to a search engine. There are ways around that, and I’ll go more into search strategies in a future column.
JewishGen
The largest Jewish genealogy website on the internet, JewishGen is a must-use tool. They have a variety of databases, background information, maps and other tools. Additionally, they host a number of geographic SIGs (Special Interest Groups) that have their own databases, i.e, Ukraine SIG, Lithuania SIG, etc. The JewishGen site is free, although expect to be asked for donations.
Although the following databases are not explicitly Jewish, they contain hundreds of millions of Jewish records and you would be remiss not to use them.
Ancestry
The largest genealogy company in the world is Ancestry, which has three main features: DNA tests (and it’s genetic genealogy database with over 20 million tests), hundreds of millions of family trees, and the largest genealogical commercial database, with many billions of records. Almost certainly, records for many of your ancestors will be found there. Its records are part of a subscription (monthly or six-month), although they allow access to a number of records that don’t require a subscription.
Family Search
FamilySearch is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), more commonly known of as the Mormons. But, anyone can use it, and it is not at all evangelical — it’s strictly about genealogy.
They have the world’s largest world family tree, and they have the largest free database of genealogical records (hundreds of billions of documents), including many Jewish records.
They are an especially good source of Eastern European records, in their original languages. Additionally, they have a collaborative relationship with JewishGen (above).
My Heritage
This Israeli-based company is known for both it’s international record database and its DNA testing service, along with it’s genetic genealogy database. They also own and run another world family tree, Geni.com. They are subscription-based.
FindMyPast
If you have any UK ancestry, this is the database that you want to check out. FindMyPast has US records, but the majority of their records focus on United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries. They are also a paid service.
These are the major databases, but there are many other smaller ones out there (free and paid) which would warrant another column.
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