There are an ever increasing number of indexes, transcripts of source material, archive web sites, researchers own family tree's etc appearing on the internet, and it is a great asset to anyone researching their family history. It allows us to communicate with other researchers, and even websites that require payment usually work out cheaper if account is taken of savings on travel expense and time.
Some sites of note on the Internet are:
The IGI, short for International Genealogical Index, contains millions of world wide index entries of mainly births and marriages. They cover the period from the 16th century up to 1906, but do not include any living persons. A word of caution, as it is an index please check the original register in case an error has been made in transcript, also there may be additional valuable information in the original document. This site covers the IGI in detail
The PRO (Public Records Office) at Kew is another invaluable site, it has over 1,000,000,000 documents in the national archive that you can acess online, though nothing beats visiting the archive in person and handling the actual source documents, it seems to make the history come to life.
The SOG (Society of Genealogists) is my third recommendation, founded in 1911 it is Britain’s premier family history society. The Society maintains a splendid genealogical library and education centre in Clerkenwell in London.
The Society’s collections are particularly valuable for research before the start of civil registration of births marriages and deaths in 1837 but there is plenty for the beginner too, including the Free Family HIstory Access area where beginners can get a taste of some of the online sources that will help them start their research.
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