<www.genealogyspot.com>: A new family history portal, GenealogySpot.com offers a lot of the same types of links and resources as its established competitors. You can browse databases of millions of surnames, view passenger ship records, access cemetery records for all 50 states, announce your family reunion and more. What’s nice about GenealogySpot is the editorial picking-and-choosing that guides the site’s content.
• Gazetteer of British Place Names
<>: Got British ancestors? Search more than 50,000 United Kingdom place names (including alternative spellings, Welsh and Gaelic versions), and discover the ancient or geographical county for each place. You’ll also learn the modern name of that place’s local government, police, health authority, region and lieutenancy. Be sure to peruse “Additional Notes for Historians and Genealogists” for tips on getting the most out of the Gazetteer.
• US Army Center of Military History
<www.army.mil/cmh-pg/>: Anyone researching ancestors and relatives who were involved in the US Army can benefit from this site. You’ll find articles discussing topics such as “Hispanic Americans in the US Army,” various World War II campaigns, the Korean War and “Supplying Washington’s Army.” Images from various army conflicts can be downloaded and you can search the Center of Military History Library.
• Tombstone Traveler’s Guide
<home.flash.net/~leimer/>: Do you think of cemeteries as “outdoor art galleries”? Repositories of a society’s “most cherished values and beliefs”? If so, you’ll enjoy this site, which offers all kinds of photos, stories and information for cemetery lovers. Family historians will benefit particularly from the sections on tombstone symbols and graveyard etiquette.
<www.publiclibraries.com>: PublicLibraries.com is an incredible site that points you to every public library in the United States. Pick your state, and you’ll get a list of libraries and their Web sites. Or check the list of specialty libraries for links to the Library of Congress, as well as presidential, state, international and subject-specific libraries.
• Save Our Sounds
<www.saveoursounds.org>: Save Our Sounds is working to hold on to the intangible heirlooms of sound: hundreds of thousands of recordings from every state and from around the world, including music, songs, poems and speeches. Find out what the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress are doing to preserve historical recordings of spoken word and music.
• Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life
: Common-place is a new online journal for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. This site may enrich your understanding of colonial ancestors, as well as add new dimensions to the early America you learned about in high school. Articles discuss topics such as PBS’ “The 1900 House” and the rate of gun ownership in early America. You’ll also find lots of ways to interact with authors and readers on your subjects of interest.
From the April 2001 issue of Family Tree Magazine