There are many free genealogy websites which are a great resource for records and helpful family data, including RootsWeb.  This free site, part of the ancestry.com family, includes a RootsWeb Family History Wiki section with their guide to searching your family trees. Along with Hosted Web Sites, you will find great tips and websites on how to begin searching, a list of sources and where to find various records, and a list of various countries/ethnic groups.  Clicking on any of their hi-lited items will provide information on beginning your research. 

The RootsWeb page has been updated since I first used it 20 years ago, taken down the past few years while it was under re-construction.  Feel free to check them out for their usable functions, like the Message Boards.  Sadly, I think it's not as comprehensive as it once was.

You can search surname listings under RootsWeb's “Connect to Family Trees” section to see what might be out there, though this page does not appear to be complete in its listings.  But, entering a name in the search tab might garner some valuable family information for you.  My favorite section years ago was the “U.S. Town/County Database.”  Here, I have found a wealth of information for vital records from churches and cemeteries, biographies, family lineages, and more.  Researching my Mom’s early New York families often brought me to the New Amsterdam/New York City, and the Albany, Schenectady and Schoharie county genweb sites. 

Under the section labeled “Message Boards,” you can search your surname of interest, read other posts, and post your own query for information which I have done.  Folks on these message boards have been very helpful.  This has also been a resource to meet extended relatives in various lines, which I have also done.  We shared our own research and documented data with each other.  Several friendships were made this way, and they continue to be counted among my close friends today.

I did find errors in submitted family trees on RootsWeb (or other online family websites) when I began my ancestry search, prompting my own research to document, write and publish my family articles in the highly recommended and accurate New York Genealogical and Biographical Journal.  For that reason, I tend to stay away from submitted family trees when seeking information on my ancestors, though you can certainly get answers to questions here.  I prefer to do as much footwork as I can on my own, albeit with guidance from friends who taught me as I learned along the way.  Submitted trees certainly can be entirely accurate; however, if used as a starting point with other online records, you can then seek sources to provide solid documentation and corroborative proof, i.e. church and cemetery records in reputable books or journals, census records, wills, etc.

The next section is “Mailing Lists.”  These lists were also invaluable to me years ago, but it is no longer usable as noted on the updated website.  I was formerly on an email list which provided discussions on various topics relating to the early settlers and records of the 1600s and 1700s in New Netherlands/New York. It was a rewarding experience to reply to someone’s query by contributing data I have in a book of ancient Albany’s city and county records that was helpful to others. 

From RootsWeb, I subscribed years ago to the Schoharie County email list.  That resource was where I saw the notice by a professor from Long Island who found an old photo in a Washington, D.C. antique shop.  The pencil writing on the back of the matting read, “First Tillapaugh Reunion July 1910…”  I replied that my mother’s two oldest brothers inherited that farm, and their sons continue to farm it today. A reproduction of the photo is in the Dallenbach book of descendants which I own, so I was well aware of what the professor had found.  In fact, the house in the photo, built in the 1830s, is still very much in use today.  I was offered the opportunity to purchase the photo which, of course, I did, thus beginning my genealogy research in earnest in the late 1990s.

Other sections like “Quick Links” have important site listings including Find-A-Grave.  These options may include national and international websites, other tools and resources such as blank forms and charts, and hosted volunteer projects.  The latter includes books owned by folks who are willing to research them for information you might need from a particular book.  Your search may also find volunteers who are able to do local lookups at either cemeteries or historical societies for you.  When volunteers have helped by doing research footwork for me, I felt it appropriate to pay their expenses, a much-appreciated gift. 

You can also submit your FamilyTreeMaker data to RootsWeb.  Instead, of doing that, I submitted a McNeill descendancy outline I wrote up with names and dates of birth to the Schoharie County Genweb site where it would be more likely to be of value for descendants.  It is also common courtesy not to submit names of any living relatives, or those born within the past 100 years out of respect for privacy.  I included no one born from 1900 through the 20^th century.

Another free online source of cross-referenced data is the comprehensive site called CyndisList.  The Categories section provides a list of resources, including American state and government as well as international resources.  There is an Adoption section to help find orphans and living people, message boards, and volunteers to assist your search.  A section entitled Free Stuff includes charts and forms, translation tools, online databases to search, volunteer lookups, surname family associations and newsletters, etc. 

Sections you might not have thought about are included at CyndisList:  1) Migration Routes, Roads and Trails, 2) Canals, Rivers and Waterways, and 3) Immigration and Naturalization.  There are sections entitled Heraldry, Hit a Brick Wall?, and Ships & Passenger Lists.  The Mailing Lists are great for asking questions when you’re stumped, and for connecting with researchers working on the same lines.  There are also sites to purchase items, and free trials to search various genealogy websites before paying their site subscription fee.

Ancestry.com has some free data, like the 1880 Federal Census records, but the best records are obtained using subscription-based entrance.  Here, you will find tabs for Home, Trees, Search, DNA, Help, and Extras.  It is an invaluable resource.

Perhaps your ancestors came through Ellis Island.  Search The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation to find your ancestors and the ship on which they sailed.  A ship’s manifest lists the passengers, their age, name of the ship, port, date of departure, occupation, nearest relative in their country of origin, and their sponsor in the U.S.  I found information for my husband’s paternal grandfather’s family when they emigrated from Holland in the early 1920s.  Some went first to North Dakota before settling in northern New Jersey as dairy farmers while others settled right away in northern New Jersey and Massachusetts to work in the textile mills. 

I also found records at the Ellis Island website for my father’s families which emigrated from the Netherlands.  Like many families, both of my father’s grandfathers came through Ellis Island, each with their oldest son – my dad’s paternal grandfather in November 1922, and his maternal grandfather in September 1923.  They settled in and around Kalamazoo, Michigan among other Dutch.  When they earned enough money, they sent for the rest of their family.  My paternal grandfather emigrated from Uithuizermeeden in the province of Groningen at age 15 on July 1923 with his mother and siblings through Ellis Island. 

However, my dad’s maternal grandfather was determined his wife and children would not go through the rigors of steerage and Ellis Island.  Instead, he sent money back home to them in Rotterdam for second-class tickets.  Decades ago, my grandmother told me only a little about their sailing on the S. S. Rotterdam to Hoboken, New Jersey.  Research showed the ship came into a New York City port in January 1926, with the ship’s manifest listing my grandmother’s family.  Unfortunately, I didn’t ask more questions.  She told me that a Dutchman, who made a living helping immigrants, met my great-grandmother and her children (my grandmother was age 15), and took them to his home in Hoboken, New Jersey.  He fed them, put them up overnight, and the next morning put them on the right train to Michigan with lunches in hand.  There, my great-grandmother was reunited with her husband, and my grandmother and her siblings with their father and oldest brother.  How exciting that must have been!

My grandparents married in 1931 and lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  With the Great Depression, my grandfather and his father lost everything as building contractors.  They removed to another Dutch enclave in Clifton, New Jersey where my grandfather became a door-to-door salesman before later becoming a successful general contractor, with many a beautiful house or remodeling project to his credit.

You can purchase quality photo documentation of the ships your ancestors sailed on.  However, I simply printed the free online photo of the ships on which my ancestors sailed, along with each respective ship’s manifest for documentation.  I used both Ancestry.com and the Ellis Island websites to obtain records.

For steerage immigrants, the Ellis Island experience included passing a medical and legal inspection.  If your papers were in order, and you were in reasonably good health, the inspection process typically lasted 3-5 hours.  The ship’s manifest log was used by inspectors to cross-examine each immigrant during the primary inspection.  Though Ellis Island has been called the “Island of Tears,” the vast majority of immigrants were treated respectfully and allowed to enter America to begin their new life.  However, about two percent of immigrants were denied entry.  Typically, if you were suspected of having a contagious illness, or if the inspector thought you might become a public burden, entrance to the U.S. was denied.  I can only imagine the pain it must have caused when one or more family members were told they had to go back to their native country. 

I am very appreciative of the efforts my many ancestors made to emigrate from their home country, to which none ever returned, of becoming American citizens, and of their hard work to provide a better way of life for their family.  By sharing bits of my ancestral heritage, of who they were and whence they came, I hope it has encouraged you to search for your ancestors, to find their place in the building of our great America, and thus to know the gift of your family heritage.

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