Finding Your Roots Online [Paperback]

Nancy Hendrickson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003 | Series: Finding Your Roots Online

While other guidebooks to online genealogy provide a multitude of Web sites, none of them tells readers how to use and analyze the sites themselves. The first book in the Family Tree Magazine Library, published by America's most popular family history magazine, Finding Your Roots Online breaks new ground in offering readers a step-by-step reference, with real examples, for using the Internet effectively in genealogical research. Nancy Hendrickson's structured, easy-to-follow approach covers the basics of sound genealogical research, then launches readers online armed with the proper tools for getting the most success with the least amount of frustration. They'll learn how to get the most out of Internet resources and recognize when a research problem can't be solved online. Finding Your Roots Online is the first step-by-step guide to getting results from the online genealogy boom. Not just another list of sites, this book reveals the strategies for successfully researching one's family tree in the forest of Web sites, databases and search engines. Readers will learn how to be an "Internet detective" and use today's technology to find their family's past. GENEALOGY Genealogy is the second-most popular subject on the Internet - after sex - as shown by the response to the new Ellis Island Web site. The most popular launch in Internet history, the site attracted more than 2.5 billion hits in its first year. But with the exploding popularity of genealogy online, family history researchers need help picking the best sites and using them to trace their roots. With more than 5 million genealogy sites now crowding cyberspace, how can readers sort through them all and select the handful that have their ancestor answers? Where do they even start? This book shows them how.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nancy Hendrickson is a contributing editor to Family Tree Magazine and author of the self-published electronic book How To Find More Ancestors Through Online Networking. Nancy has fifteen years of experience with online genealogy and is the publisher and editor of Internet Genealogy, a free electronic newsletter for Internet genealogists. She lives in San Diego, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: Betterway Books; 1 edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558706356
• ISBN-13: 978-1558706354
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi! I'm Nancy Hendrickson, a freelance author based in San Diego. I love writing company histories, magazine articles, personal/family histories and ghostwriting projects.

I've just finished writing a new book on Internet genealogy - a topic I've covered for Family Tree Magazine for many, many years. And, I'm teaching 7 classes over at Family Tree University. http://familytreeuniversity.com

When not writing or consulting, I spend as much time as possible traveling to the historic sites of the frontier west. I've posted photos of these trips over at http://flickr.com/frontiertraveler

At home in San Diego, one of my favorite pasttimes is flying my Delta stunt kite down at the Bay - - and seeing how many disastrous crashes I can avoid! My most recent adventure involved attaching a Flip video camera to my kite to get a bird's eye view of San Diego. Poor Flip.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad -- but not what it's advertised to be, March 27, 2005

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Finding Your Roots Online (Paperback)

With each year, the World Wide Web becomes, more and more, the venue of first resort for family researchers -- especially for novices with insufficient background in traditional research methods, who often do not understand that the Internet hasn't made genealogy "easier," just more convenient and much less expensive. I've been a heavy user of online resources for a decade and a half, but I still make personal visits, legal pad in hand, to rural courthouses and cemeteries. I also have reviewed (in several publications) a considerable number of "Internet genealogy" how-to books over the years and I have found that many actually use that phrase only as a marketing ploy, devoting most of their attention either to genealogical methods in general or to computers and the Internet in general, not to the use of the Internet in family research. On a purely quantitative basis -- counting the pages, that is -- this volume gives about 25% of its space to traditional genealogical subjects (family group sheets, visiting a library, the nature of "courthouse records," analysis of evidence, publishing a family newsletter, etc.), and about 30% to discussions of computer issues and the Internet (how Google works, why you should make backups of your data, getting an email account, finding an ISP that will include free web page space, and so on).

This leaves only about 45% of the book to actually cover the use of computers and the Internet in pursuing genealogical research. As with most of its predecessors reviewed in this column, what the author has to say is actually worth reading and her advice, whether on research methodology or on making your way in cyberspace, is generally sound. But what the title refers to comprises less than half the book. It may also be worth noting that the author's principal qualification for writing seems to be that she is a frequent author for the print edition of FAMILY TREE MAGAZINE and a regular columnist for the magazine's online newsletter, and that that publication now owns Betterway Books.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST Internet genealogy book I've read!, May 9, 2003

By 

CCrilley (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding Your Roots Online (Paperback)

I've read just about every Internet genealogy book that's been published, but none even comes close to this one in giving the reader practical methods of doing online family tree research. The author used real-life examples to illustrate different search strategies--and they really work! If you want to find your ancestors on the Internet, this is the book you want to buy. I couldn't believe how easy it was to find my own ancestors using just one of the techniques. Two thumbs up!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Climbing Your Family Tree, Exploring Your Roots, July 10, 2003

By 

Jessica Macbeth (Port Townsend WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding Your Roots Online (Paperback)

Finding Your Roots Online is a MUST read for anyone who wants to use the Internet to climb their family tree. The book begins with computer and Internet basics, then moves into a detailed explanation of the four most valuable search strategies. Each strategy section is accompanied by real-life searches, along with the best Web sites for specific types of research. My favorite chapter was the one that showed how to move easily back and forth between the strategies in order to tease every bit of genealogical information out of each site. If you follow along with each search, you're sure to find several of your own ancestors. Ms Hendrickson's great experience, practical approach, and deep interest in geneology and history shine through these pages, lighting the way for beginner and experienced searchers alike.