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Like the Internet as a whole, online genealogy information is a chaotic hodgepodge. The scope can be as broad as the U.S. Social Security Death Index, which draws on some 60 million records of those for whom a lump-sum death benefit was paid, mostly between 1963 and 1997; and as specific as the street maps of Eastern Europe on the Shtetlseeker page of the JewishGen website. Click onto Historical Records of Dukes County, Mass., to see who lived on Martha's Vineyard in 1790. Survey the resources of the Trinidad and Tobago National Library on its website. Contact the Newfoundland and Labrador Genealogical Society, which has a database of more than 500,000 names, including headstone inscriptions from 300 cemeteries in the Canadian province, and for a small fee the group will do a search and mail back the results. A Salt Lake City entrepreneur offers wills from nine states for $7 each.
Beyond research, the Web is a genealogists' agora, invaluable for trading information and connecting with living relatives. Dave Distler, who works at an electronics firm in Greenwood, Ind., lost track of a great-great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Jakob Distler, who was born in 1814 in Germany, Prussia, Rhineland or Northern Bavaria, according to vague records. Surfing the Net, he found an organization, Palatines to America, which referred him to a German genealogist who found his grandfather's hometown, Hinterweidenthal. When he entered the village name in a search engine, he found a private e-mail address. Three weeks after e-mailing, he got a response from a local resident with the phone numbers of two Distler families in the town. In May 1996, three New World and 14 Old World Distlers met at a cozy German inn to celebrate. "Old Uncle Fritz had told me about the mysterious Distlers who journeyed to the other side of the Atlantic," says Brigitte Schubert, a newfound German cousin. "I was so glad to sit beside Dave, I didn't want to let go of his hand."
DIGGING FOR DOCUMENTS
As you embark on your search, think of yourself as part historian, part detective. Federal records, vast and varied, can be researched at the National Archives and its 13 regional branches as well as at major libraries--and not necessarily online. Because of privacy laws, the U.S. Census is made public only after 72 years have passed since the time it was taken. Next to be opened is the 1930 census, which will become available in 2002. Early censuses, beginning in 1790, are sketchy, but by the mid-19th century they begin to provide rich detail, listing everyone in the family by name, age, occupation and place of birth. Starting with 1900, one can find out the year of immigration, whether English was spoken and whether a home was owned or rented. Robert Stokes, a retired Dallas high school principal, has traced his family from 17th century Maryland through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Mississippi to Texas. "It is such a thrill when you find a census about an old relative that shows he owned 26 pigs and a wagon," he says. "Then you have to go to the next census to see how he made out. If he had horses, and more pigs, he was doing well."