Video #5 of our 25 Websites for Genealogy – Libraries and Archives

by Lisa Cooke | Apr 18, 2024 | 01 What's New, Archives, Libraries, Website Tutorials

VIDEO & SHOW NOTES: Video #5 of our 25 Websites for Genealogy YouTube Playlist. In this video, my guest presenter Gena Philibert-Ortega covers Library and Archive websites that are must-haves for family history research. You’ll find plenty of genealogy gems waiting for free at websites #23 through 25 in our list.

Websites 23 through 25 of our 25  Websites for Genealogy

Some of these websites will be new to you, and others are going to be very familiar to you. In talking about the familiar websites, I want to get you thinking about them differently, explain a little bit more about what you can do at these websites, and how to get the most out of them.

In this series of 25 Websites for Genealogy, we’re going to be looking at websites in different categories. Our third category is Library and Archive websites (#23 through 25). 

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Website #23: WorldCat

https://worldcat.org

WorldCat.org is a free website that provides access through its card catalog to millions of materials from libraries around the world. You’ll find items such as:

• United States Civil War and other military records
• Family Bibles, church histories, and records
• Publications such as directories, handbooks, and magazines
• Birth, marriage, death, wills, and obituary indexes
• Microfilmed genealogy and local history collections
• Newspapers from around the world
• Photographs
• Town histories
• probate records

How to search for name variations at WorldCat.

Learn more with this video from Lisa Louise Cooke: 5 Things You Should Be Doing at WorldCat.

Video and show notes

Website #24: ArchiveGrid

https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ 

This lesser-known free website can help you locate old documents and manuscript items available in over 1,500 different archival collections. ArchiveGrid currently includes close to 5 million archival item entries!

ArchiveGrid is a companion website to WorldCat, the free online catalog of millions of library items from thousands of libraries. The difference is that ArchiveGrid focuses not on published items but (generally-speaking) on unpublished ones.

List of genealogical results at ArchiveGrid.

Watch this video from Lisa Louise Cooke: Bust Brick Walls & Go Deeper with ArchiveGrid (Premium)

Read How to Find Original Manuscripts with ArchiveGrid.

Click here to read this article.

Website #25: National Archives

https://www.archives.gov

The National Archives website and online catalog can be a bit mystifying. If you’ve ever tried to search it and wound up frustrated, you’re not alone. This is often the case because the nature of the archives and the search function of the online Catalog are not genealogically focused. Armed with an understanding of how and why it is set up the way it is, and the know-how to search, refine, and download documents, you’ll be ready to add it to your genealogy toolkit.

More links at the National Archives:

• National Archives – Research our Records.
• National Archives – Military Records Research.
• History Hub
• National Archives Catalog

Learn more with this video from Lisa Louise Cooke: How to Search the U.S. National Archives Online Catalog for Genealogy

Video and Show Notes.

Resources:

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