Local History & Genealogy: Genealogy Websites

10 Million Names is dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated ten million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between the 1500s and 1865. 10 Million Names is engaging a collaborative network of expert genealogists, cultural organizations, and community-based family historians.

Access hundreds of links to genealogical data by state or by topic.

Special collections include African American and a Native American Gateway; military records; and a surname database contributed by researchers. One of the largest genealogical library collections in the U.S.

Offers links organized by topics/categories. A cross-referenced index contains extensive lists of online genealogy resources.

With over 90,000 maps and related images viewable online, this map collection can help you see where your ancestors lived and how boundaries and place names changed over time. The maps date from 1223 to current day.

Dead Fred's Genealogy Photo Archive is a free photo genealogy research web site devoted to helping you visualize your heritage.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an open access collection of more than 29 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States.

A completely free genealogy database website. You can use an Advanced Search tool by surname, record type, and/or place to access millions of records. The FamilySearch Wiki is a “go to” resource to find what exists for a wide range of family history topics, even beyond FamilySearch’s extensive databases.

The Fashion History Timeline is an open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe. The Timeline website offers well-researched, accessibly written entries on specific artworks, garments and films for those interested in fashion and dress history.

A Federal agency of the United States Department of War to help slaves who were set free after the Civil War and also poor whites with provisions, clothing, and fuel. It also helped with immediate and temporary shelter and supplied food and aid to the destitute and suffering.

Offers helpful blog posts as well as ever-growing digital collections including marriage records, bible records, obituaries and funeral programs, records for free people of color, United States Colored Troops pension files, and more.

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. You can find yearbooks, city directories, family histories, county histories and all sorts of other records relevant to genealogists.

An easy-to-use website with many record groups and good surname search facilities. Daitch-Mokotoff phonetic search algorithms for eastern European and Jewish name searches. Some databases require payment.

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections.

Maintained by the U.S. Federal government, NARA houses millions of microfilmed, printed, and manuscript records. Excellent for census records; governmental and military history records; military pension files; product patents; also passenger lists, early naturalization records, and much more.

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) is a database containing information about the men who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. Other information on the site includes histories of Union and Confederate regiments, links to descriptions of significant battles, and selected lists of prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records, which will be amended over time.

The NYPL digital collections contain over 870,000 items including prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.

Focuses on providing guidance and links to records for passenger lists from about 1820 to the early 1950s. It includes suggestions for finding records for ports of arrival and immigration records.

Contains tools for finding immigration records, vital records, and census records, as well as tools for dealing with calendars, maps, foreign alphabets, and more.

Discover explanations on all federal census years and access copies of original forms and questions.

The Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC) is a digital repository of all scales and editions of USGS topographic maps. The HTMC contains thousands of scans of topographic maps originally published as paper documents between 1884 and 2006.
The topoView tool allows the user to overlay historic maps over modern ones, and even includes a transparency slider to visualize the change over time.

Contains images of more than 5 million federal land title records issued between 1788 and the present, plus survey plats and field notes, land status records, and control document index records.

Interactive Maps displaying boundary changes and new county formations. Provided by the Newberry Library.

Boston Public Library has a stellar collection of local and family history materials in print, in electronic format, and on microform. This includes published genealogies, town histories, immigration records, passenger lists, newspapers, and many other resources to help you find the history of your family.

With over 100,000 images across more than 4,000 items, their ever growing digital collections include materials from all across New England spanning the 17th century to the 21st century. Inside you'll find manuscript sermons, vital church records, church disciplinary records, minister diaries, the documented religious experiences of everyday Congregationalists across time, and more.

This site provides access to photographs, manuscripts, books, audio recordings, and other materials of historical interest that have been digitized and made available by members of Digital Commonwealth, a statewide consortium of libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies from across Massachusetts.

The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource documenting the sculpture on over 9,000 gravestones most of which were made prior to 1800. These early stones are both a significant form of artistic creation and precious records of biographical information, now subject to vandalism and to deterioration from the environment. The data accompanying the photographs include the name and death date of the deceased, the location of the stone, and information concerning the stone material, the iconography, the inscription, and (when known) the carver.

With more than 125,000 objects and 1.5 million archival materials, Historic New England’s collection tells the story of how New Englanders lived from the seventeenth century to today.
Search collections of photographs, wallpaper, jewelry, home furnishings, architectural drawings, clothing, and more, from the opulent to the everyday.

Compiled by reference specialists at the Library of Congress, this guide identifies key print and online resources for pursuing family history, as well as state, county and municipal historical research, for the State of Massachusetts.

The MHS actively collects diaries, letters, and other personal papers of individuals and families, as well as the records of institutions and organizations that document the history of Massachusetts and the nation.

The Massachusetts Archives holds the records of state government from 1629 to the present. While the Archives does not hold public records because of any inherent genealogical value, these documents can still be an important resource for people studying family history.

"The Native Northeast Research Collaborative's Native Northeast Portal contains primary source materials by, on, or about Northeast Indians from repositories around the world. Documents are digitized, transcribed, annotated, reviewed by the appropriate contemporary descendant community representatives, and brought together with scholarly annotations and academic/community commentary into one edited interactive digital collection. The Portal currently contains thousands of records associated with scores of Native communities."