Irish Catholic Parish Registers Now Online

Great news for those with Irish ancestors. The National Library of Ireland now has digitized microfilm of Irish Catholic Church registers online. The records are unindexed, but you can browse through the images for 1,086 individual parishes for free. They cover the 1740s to the 1880s and consist of mostly baptisms and marriages. You can find the registers online at:

Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland

10 Cool Places to Find Your Ancestors Online (USA)

For Genealogy Research

FamilySearch Genealogy Record Search
You'll find all sorts of free genealogy indexes and records here with more being added fairly often.

National Archives Online Public Access Search
Here you can search the online resources of the U.S. National Archives, including the Access to Archival Databases (AAD).

Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records and Obituaries
A list of indexes for death certificates, death records, newspaper obituaries, cemetery burials and probate records.

Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes
A list of indexes for birth and marriage records.

Online Military Indexes and Records
A list of online military indexes from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam.

Ship Passenger Lists on the Internet
Internet sources for digitized and transcribed passenger records and indexes.

Online Naturalization Records and Indexes
A directory to help find USA naturalization records.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM), General Land Office (GLO) Records
Here you can search for some federal land records from the BLM.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
A growing collection of searchable digitized newspapers (1836-1922) from the Library of Congress.

Some Free Online Census Records and Indexes
A list of some free census records and indexes on the Internet.

Celebrating 10 Years of the Online Death Indexes Website

This is the story of how a small list of online death indexes became a website...

My grandfather is missing. He's been missing since 1948, years before I was born. When I first started doing genealogy, finding what happened to him became a priority. In the late 1990s, when he would have been in his mid-90s and likely deceased, I began looking for online death indexes to see if I could find him. There weren't many death indexes on the Internet then. The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was online, but he's not listed there. I had already checked it numerous times on microfiche at LDS Family History Centers. So I started looking for other death indexes. I believe the first full state index to go online was the Kentucky death index (1911-1992), provided by the University of Kentucky. At the time I wondered who else would put up death indexes. I was hoping for a lot them.

As I went along I made a list of the death indexes I had searched and saved this as a text file on my computer. In June 2000 I converted the list to HTML and added it as a single webpage to my German Roots genealogy website, which first went online in 1998. It quickly became the most popular webpage on the site. It seems a lot of living people are looking for dead people.

The original webpage had about a dozen links to death indexes. By late 2000 Rootsweb had put up death indexes for California, Maine and Texas (plus Kentucky). Michigan and Virginia had historical indexes. I also had links to the SSDI, Find-A-Grave and other resources. And I kept looking for more.

By 2003 the original death indexes webpage was getting really long so I divided it into two pages: Arizona to Mississippi and Missouri to Wyoming. I soon realized I would probably need three pages, then four, so why not fifty? So I decided to develop what was once a small text file of online death indexes into an entire website. I set up deathindexes.com in November of 2003 and made a separate webpage for each state. Then two people emailed me asking for a District of Columbia page, so that got added too. Since then I've gotten a lot of email comments, suggestions for additions, and encouragement from people who use the website, which is nice. I also seek out more death indexes as I work on various genealogy projects. And sometimes I just go bounding around looking for them. I use the death indexes website myself all the time. It think it's quite useful :)

The website includes links to death records indexes, newspaper obituaries, cemetery burials and probate records. A few states and some individual counties now have online digitized death certificates that can be downloaded. Links to these are also listed. Updates to the website are posted right here in this blog, which you can subscribe to using a feed reader or by email -- see the subscription options over on the right side or at the end of this post.

I still haven't found my grandfather. I have searched for him in every index listed on the website. Even the earlier ones I know he wouldn't be in. I test and evaluate each link before it gets added to the website. I might as well use him as my guide. This journey began in 1948, before I was born. It began for me in the late 1980s. And it still continues... Do our ancestors, even the ones we never knew, influence us? I think so. Actually I think their influence is huge. Which is probably why we spend so much time looking for them.

You can find the death indexes website at: Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records, Cemetery Burials and Obituaries. This month (November 2013) marks the website's 10th anniversary.

Celebrating 15 Years of German Roots

This month marks the 15th anniversary of my German Roots genealogy website, which was launched in October 1998. The original idea was to have some useful tips and online resources for Americans with German ancestors, including suggestions for researching back to a person's German immigrant, how to find the immigrant's German hometown, and what to do next. Many directories of online genealogy records got added along the way. Those are probably what the German Roots website is best known for.

Directories of Online Genealogy Records
In 2000 I added a new webpage of online US death indexes and it quickly became the most popular page on the German Roots website. Three years later that webpage became quite large so I divided it in half, and then decided to spin it off into its own website with a page for each state. That single webpage on the German Roots website became the Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records website, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary next month.

Similar directories of online genealogy indexes were added to the German Roots website, for both U.S. and German records. Here are some of the most popular:

Online Birth and Marriage Records and Indexes (USA)

Ship Passenger Lists and Records on the Internet

Online Searchable Naturalization Records and Indexes (USA)

Online German Genealogy Records and Databases

The military indexes page was spun off into its own website in 2004. See: Online Military Indexes and Records

Wee Monster Genealogy
As some of you may remember, the German Roots website originally had this URL: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster. AT&T Worldnet was my ISP at the time and Monster was the name of my dog, who was wee in stature. That changed in 2010 when Worldnet closed down their personal webpages. Now the German Roots website is at http://www.germanroots.com/. If you still have links that use any of the old "wee-monster" URLs, they will no longer work. But you can find a handy guide with updated URLs of the most popular "wee-monster" webpages here: Wee-Monster Genealogy Webpages

As the German Roots website celebrates its 15th anniversary I hope it has been a useful tool for some in finding their ancestors.

Online Genealogy Records Directories - Moving

Some of my online directories of genealogy indexes and records are moving to new URLs. Here is a list of some of the most popular, along with their new URLs. Please update any links you may have to these webpages. Thank you! -Joe

Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes for the USA
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/vitalrecords.html

is now at:
http://www.germanroots.com/vitalrecords.html

What Passenger Lists Are Online?
Internet Sources for Transcribed Passenger Records and Indexes
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/onlinelists.html

is now at:
http://www.germanroots.com/onlinelists.html

Online Searchable Naturalization Indexes and Records (USA)
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/naturalization.html

is now at:
http://www.germanroots.com/naturalization.html

Finding U.S. Naturalization Records - a Genealogy Guide
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/naturalizationrecords.html

is now at:
http://www.germanroots.com/naturalizationrecords.html

Online Military Indexes and Databases - USA
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/military.html

was expanded into a separate website (in 2004):
http://www.militaryindexes.com/

Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records
was at: http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/deathrecords.html

was expanded into a separate website (in 2003):
http://www.deathindexes.com/

Thank you!

The German Roots (wee-monster) Website is Moving

If you have any links to my German Roots website, please update them - the old website will be going away soon. It was located at:

German Roots: German Genealogy Resources
http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/

It has moved to:

http://www.germanroots.com/

If you are linking to an interior webpage such as:

What Passenger Lists Are Online?
http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/onlinelists.html

Please change the URL to:

http://www.germanroots.com/onlinelists.html

Please change any other links to the old "wee-monster" website you may have.

Thank you kindly! :)

-Joe Beine

Celebrating Ten Years of German Roots

October 2008 is the tenth anniversary of my German Roots: German Genealogy Resources website. It started off with just a handful of pages and now it has, oh I don't know, a whole lot of pages.

I initially started the website as a directory of online resources for German-American genealogy research. Eventually I added some of my own content and articles. And a whole bunch of other genealogy stuff. It was originally put online in October 1998 at home.att.net/~wee-monster

In case you're wondering about the URL, Monster was my dog at the time. She died last year. She was wee :)

The website is now at www.germanroots.com which is easier to remember than the name of my dog, I suppose.

Three other websites were eventually spun off of the German Roots site, when I realized it was getting too big and I wanted to expand it beyond German genealogy. These are:

Online Searchable Death Records Indexes and Obituaries for the USA, which was originally a single webpage on the German Roots website.

Online Military Indexes and Records, also originally a single webpage on the German Roots website.

Genealogy Articles, Tips and Research Guides, which is where I put more general genealogy stuff.

So here's to a very interesting ten years of German Roots. Thanks to all the people who have offered suggestions and comments and constructive criticism. Everyone gets a symbolic cyber German beer! Prost!

Genealogy Records and Indexes on the Internet - USA

Ok, I admit it. Sometimes I can't remember where some of my own webpages are and I have to use Google to find them. How embarrassing. So I've compiled this list of many of my directories of online U.S. genealogy indexes and records. To help me find them myself and maybe it will be helpful to you too...

Cemeteries, Obituaries and Vital Records

• Online Death Indexes, Death Certificates, Obituaries and Cemetery Burial Records


• Online Birth and Marriage Records Indexes

Census Records

• Some Free Online Census Records Indexes


• State Census Records includes links to some online indexes

County Histories and Biographies

• Online County Histories, Biographies and Indexes

Immigration Records

• What Passenger Lists are Online?


• Online Naturalization Records and Indexes

Military Records

• Online Military Indexes, Records and Rosters of Soldiers

Newspapers (Historical)

• Directory of Historical Newspapers on the Internet

Directory of Historical Newspapers on the Internet

The directory of U.S. historical newspapers at the Genealogy Research Guides Website was recently revised and expanded. This directory includes links to online collections of historical newspapers or indexes from about 20 states. Individual newspapers are usually not listed unless they are for a large city (such as the New York Times) or represent an important historic period (such as the Civil War). The directory can be found at:

Historical Newspapers and Indexes On The Internet - USA