A checklist for beginners from Family Tree Magazine.

Helpful tips from Lisa Alzo.

Free, multi-part, self-paced lessons covering Genealogical Basics, Family & Home Sources, Genealogy Research 101, and Vital Records - Birth, Marriage, Death, Divorce.

The Learning Center is home to four categories:

• What's New - Here you'll find helpful articles relating to recently added collections on Ancestry.com and tips on how to use the newest tools and technology.
• First Steps - If you're new to family history, this section will help you get started. From home sources and interview questions to online searching and family history trees.
  
• Next Steps - SinceAncestry.com launched in 1996, they've added more than 7 billion records to the site. This section will teach you how to findthe records you needto fill in your family story
• Family History 101 - As you learn more about the records your ancestors left behind and their place in history, your story emerges. Ancestry.com's family history community and the family historians on their staff love sharing their experiences, and they would love to hear your stories, too. Join them on Facebook, Twitter and their blogs, and watch helpful videosvia their Livestream and YouTube channels. You can also subscribe to their weekly and monthly newsletters which deliver tips and tricks directly to your inbox.
  

Ancestry magazine focused on genealogy for today’s family historian, with tips for using Ancestry.com, advice from family history experts, and success stories from genealogists across the globe. Regular features included “Found!” by Megan Smolenyak, reader-submitted heritage recipes, Howard Wolinsky’s tech-driven “NextGen,” feature articles, a timeline, how-to tips for Family Tree Maker, and insider insight to new tools and records at Ancestry.com. Ancestry magazine was published 6 times yearly by Ancestry Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com. It has now ceased publication with the March/April 2010 issue. Searchable digitized issues from vol.12:no.1, January/February 1994, through vol.27:no.5, September/October 2009, are available via Google Books.

Features a new guest expert every two weeks. Each of these experts offers new tips and lessons on topics that help you learn how to trace your family history.

Prezi presentation by Molly Mooney of Canton Public Library.

This two-hour video seminar covers the essentials about BCG certification.Presenters are Dr. Thomas W. Jones, CG, CGL, FASG, and Elissa Scalise Powell, CG. Recorded before a live audience in Salt Lake City in November 2008, the video seminar follows the same format as the certification seminars BCG presents at the annual conferences of the National Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies.

Skillbuilding columns originally published in BCG's educational newsletter, OnBoard.

Online noncredit courses from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. There are no final exams, and no course grades or certificates of completion. However, many students wish to track their progress, so assignments and exercises are graded for the student's own information. Students receive feedback for any incorrect answers to help them better grasp key concepts. Scroll down the page to the subject links listed below and then select a specific course.

• Family History/Genealogy -- Introductory
• Family History/Genealogy -- Record Type
• Family History/Genealogy -- Regional and Ethnic
  

Free genealogy spreadsheets for census, cemetery and manifest data.

This file contains many of the common "buzzwords," terminology and legal words found in genealogy work.

Enter a date between 1800 and 2002 to see an "On This Day in History" synopsis of the headlines of the day, top songs, prices of commonly-bought items such as bread and milk, who the President and Vice-President were, Academy Award winners that year, popular books and television shows (if there was TV then), and people born on that date.

ELIZABETH SHOWN MILLS is a historical writer with decades of research experience in public and private records of many Western nations. Published widely by academic and popular presses, Mills edited a national-level scholarly journal for sixteen years, taught for thirteen years at a National Archives-based institute on archival records and, for twenty-five years has headed a university-based program in advanced research methodology. Mills knows records, voraciously devours records, and regularly shares her expertise in them with live and media audiences across three continents.

Family Tree University is a fee-based online education program from the publishers of Family Tree Magazine. Family Tree University brings Family Tree Magazine’s friendly, accessible style of genealogy instruction to an online learning environment. Their goal is to make genealogy education rewarding and fun for family history hobbyists of all experience and skill levels. Whether you’re a total newbie or you’ve been working on your family tree for years, you’ll find classes and seminars to help you with your research challenges. Family Tree University offers genealogy education in a variety of formats, so you can choose what works best for you. Select an option below to find out more:

• Online Courses: four-week, instructor-guided classes that “meet” on the web
• Independent Study Courses: classes you complete on your own—and completely at your own pace
• Webinars: live and recorded online seminars presented by genealogy experts

Links to the Research Wiki, Research Courses, and Get Started pages of the FamilySearch.org site.

If you have experience with family history but are new to using the Wiki, this meeting is for you! You may receive support in contributing to the Wiki, which helps others with direction in their personal research. Live online training sessions are held on Thursdays from 1:00-2:00 PM CST.

Quick videos to help you get started in family history and learn how to use FamilySearch.org as well as other resources.

Language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute.These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain and freely available in an electronic format. This site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses here are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.

New for 2012, GRIPitt is a research institute offering four week-long genealogical courses which incorporate hands-on learning in a state-of-the-art and friendly community atmosphere. Socializing during meals or in the evenings may let distant cousins discover each other or a new-found research buddy.

The Genealogical Speakers Guild was founded in 1991 to facilitate better communication between speakers and societies. This on-line directory is one step toward that

Age and birthdate calculators, perpetual calendars, Soundex calculators, Julian to Gregorian Calendar charts.

A collection of basic tools from Family Tree Magazine every family historian needs, including a relationship chart, guidance for documenting your research, research-trip preparation and directories of research locations.

Free genealogy forms and family tree charts are provided for download to assist in ancestry research and documentation.

"All the genealogy software, reviewed and rated by you" run by Louis Kessler.

A series of online lessons on Beginning Genealogy, Internet Genealogy, Tracing Immigrant Origins, and Researching with Genealogy.com.

News about upcoming genealogy webinars offered throughout the online genealogy community.

Find the latitude and longitude of a point on the map.

Short video from FamilySearch TechTips blog.

An interactive map showing U.S. immigration data since 1800 from the New York Times.

A fill-in form which adjusts any given amount of money for inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index, from 1800 to 2010. The pre-1975 data are the Consumer Price Index statistics from Historical Statistics of the United States (USGPO, 1975). All data since then are from the annual Statistical Abstracts of the United States.

Need to order records or contract for research overseas? This site will let you exchange American dollars for foreign currency to pay for furthering your international lines.

Purchase recordings from many national genealogical society conferences including the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), National Genealogical Society (NGS), Ohio Genealogical Society, and Southern California Genealogical Jamborees.

MeasuringWorth is a service for calculating relative worth over time. Calculators in several different currencies are available, including U.S. dollars, British pounds, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen.

Guides on Family History, Local History, Latin and Paleography.

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies in affiliation with the Continuing Education, University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto provides web-based courses for both family historians and professional genealogists.To support the needs of both amateur family historians and aspiring professional genealogists for reliable and comprehensive education they have designed a series of courses (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Electives) leading to various Certificates in Genealogical Studies with specialization in various countries.

Macromedia flash presentations of lectures on topics such as Finding Your Ancestors Online, Applying to Lineage Societies, and Getting Started in Genealogy.

Create timelines of five to 140 year spans.

Free genealogy and family history videos covering multiple topics, speakers, conferences and skill levels.

TheShipsList website, online since August 1999, will help you find your ancestors on ships' passenger lists. They also have immigration reports, newspaper records, shipwreck information, ship pictures, ship descriptions, shipping-line fleet lists and more; as well as hundreds of passenger lists to Canada, USA, Australia and even some for South Africa. They have over 3,500 totally free access web-pages with new databases added regularly.

The soundex is a coded surname (last name) index based on the way a surname sounds rather than the way it is spelled. Surnames that sound the same, but are spelled differently, like SMITH and SMYTH, have the same code and are filed together. The soundex coding system was developed so that you can find a surname even though it may have been recorded under various spellings.

Many older tombstones list age and date of death. This tool calculates birthdate from the age of death and the date of death on the tombstone, death certificate or obituary. Results are given in a year-month-day format

Online lessons from the FamilySearch Learning Center covering 13 Midwestern states, including Wisconsin.

• Lesson 1: Locating Your Ancestor
• Lesson 2: Understanding Census and Vital Records
  
• Lesson 3: A Case Study

Archives exist both to preserve historic materials and to make them available for use. This guide addresses the second purpose by outlining the functions and procedures of archives, and is designed both for first-time archives users and scholars who have already conducted research in archives. The content covers:

• How archives function
• How to identify appropriate archives for your research
• How to access historical materials and research at an archives

Repositories and their collecting scopes and practices may differ, but the principles in this guide should assist you in accomplishing your research goals at any archival institution.

The purpose of this project is to create a comprehensive database of name variants that should be searched whenever a particular name is searched. Currently, providers of genealogical records use algorithms like Soundex, or home-grown solutions to the problem of returning records with names that are spelled similarly and are likely matches for the searched-for name. A large part of genealogical expertise involves learning alternate spellings for the surnames in your tree. Why not share this knowledge with others? By adding your alternate spellings to the database, searches on WeRelate and on any other website that uses it will include your alternate spellings automatically. This database is being made freely available to any website that wants to use it. The goal is to create a free resource that all genealogy websites use, so that genealogy searches are consistent across the Web.

The WhatWasThere project was inspired by the realization that we could leverage technology and the connections it facilitates to provide a new human experience of time and space – a virtual time machine of sorts that allows users to navigate familiar streets as they appeared in the past. The premise is simple: provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps). So wherever you are in the world, take a moment to upload a photograph and contribute to history!