Thursday, March 4, 2010

Looking for the StateGenSites?

Looking for the StateGenSites? think they have disappeared? I found them!!! They are now residing very happily on http://www.genealogytoday.com/genealogy/states/
a great website on its own but for those, not familiar with StateGenSites, they are a database of over 20,000 genealogy websites with links in many categories and one of the most popular directories for U.S. genealogy. For example lets look at the Pennsylvania link, here you will find'
Pennsylvania Vital Records
Pennsylvania Historical Societies
Pennsylvania Cemeteries
Pennsylvania Census
Pennsylvania Obituaries
Pennsylvania Adoption Support
Free Lookups for Pennsylvania
State Links for Pennsylvania
rClicking the first link. Vital Records brings up a page that details Records for Birth, Marriage, Divorce, and Death Records. The State Department of Health, Pennsylvania Church Records, Pennsylvania Naturalization Records
To find the link for to send for a death certificate, click on Department of Health. scroll to bottom, in vital records link, click on death certificate .This brings up a page with a link to print out a form to apply directly to the state for a death certificate. I recently had occasion to use this form and within two weeks had the information I was searching for. For those who do not know, death certificates can fill in those genealogy holes.because most death certificates contain the maiden name of the deceased Mother, name of Father,and the place of birth. which can include the town and country. Wow, that's what you were looking for!!

Next on the list look at the Historical Society link, clicking here will bring up a web page with all the Historical and Genealogy Societies in Pennsylvania and while there be sure click the link NEW to YAR and look for our website NEPA Genealogical Society which has been recently updated and very well done.

Each of the other links Cemeteries, Census, Obituaries, Adoption Support. Free Lookups will direct you to various websites dedicated to the topic, however the State links do present some surprises one of which I just found recently. On the State links there is a section called wills, since I have many ancestors in many Pennsylvania counties I clicked wills and then went to Columbia county There I found an E-Bay listing that listed genealogy items for sale in real-time related to what I was looking for under the heading of Pennsylvania Genealogy. Well this is a timesaver don't you agree?
One word of caution, sometimes you have to get creative in linking to many sites, as some of the links are out of date and you get the dreaded Website Not Found page, for instance some of the links bring roots web sites, but with the take-over of Roots web by Ancestry.com some of the URL's are out of date. For many Pennsylvania sites I use http://www.pa-roots.org/ and the new roots web site is http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ from there you can go into the various county sites.

Another thing to keep in mind when linking though this site look at the ad space, there you will find other genealogy sites one that I saw was Genealogy Bank which is a great site that I use often, but then that is a subject for another day.

Enjoy!!!

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