8 Resources to Help You Gather Family History
Gathering your family history can be quite a project but it’s worth the time. Luckily there are many websites and apps that can help you collect, share, and use information about your family tree. We’ve compiled a list of 8 resources to help you get started.
Have one to add to the list? Let us know in the comments section.
- Ancestry: Among the best-known and most-used online resources for genealogy—ideal for researching archives, contacting long-lost relatives, and the like.
- eFamily/Famiva: A simple but capacious platform for assembling a family tree with photos, bios, news, recipes, etc.
- Family Pursuit: This website allows you to team up with other genealogists; if you’ve got other family members on the case, you could use this for nitty-gritty coordination and the delegation of specific tasks.
- Geni: Put together an online family tree with photos, videos, news feeds, timelines, and other features.
- WikiTree: This free and secure resource aims to assemble one great big family tree using DNA as well as traditional genealogical avenues.
- Find a Grave: This long-running website allows you to document and annotate burial places—a useful activity for family-tree builders among others.
- Government websites in the U.S.: Including those of the U.S. Census Bureau as well as state archives, may come in handy.
- JRNL: OK, we’re biased, but we do make gathering and sharing of family information wonderfully easy and accessible.
Most of these resources have strict privacy controls and secured databases. You should research those safeguards of any family tree resource you’re using, and inquire about them specifically if it’s not clear.
