I’ve started work converting my fathers spreadsheets of our family ancestry into electronic (and searchable form).
There’s been a huge amount of interest and development in online tools for tracing genealogy over the last 10 years, indeed it’s something the internet was almost made for. Unfortunately so far, little of the digitised data is freely available online (though freely available in public libraries). It seems as though the agencies which held the data have allowed monopoly providers to sell the data in return for their financial contribution to digitising the data.
The exception I’ve found has been Google Books – digitised versions of out of copyright books.
Searching on Google for unusual names, or a name with a date if you have it can also be fruitful. I found a website about a particular village where an ancestor had been the vicar and there was lots of additional information there.
List of Useful Tools
- TNG – software used to build the site. Requires PHP Hosting.
- MyHeritage – Desktop software, free version, used to produce printable vertical family trees.
- EzeePlan – very helpful printers who produced a 2x A0 size print on a single roll of paper. Very good value too.