100 BEST FREE ONLINE RESOURCES
Editor celebrates 100 issues of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine by selecting 100 great family history resources anyone can access for free online
Editor Sarah Williams selects 100 family history resources that anyone can access for free online
Over the past 100 issues of this magazine, I have come across thousands of websites, some vast, some small, some basic, some beautiful. All of them include something that family historians will find useful.
So when I started compiling this list of my top 100, I had a problem. How can you whittle thousands down to just 100?
I decided to focus on websites that had primary data on them as well as forums that I believe are genuinely useful and needed including. I also decided to ask for input from family history societies.
The specialist knowledge held by family history societies is phenomenal and often under-used and by enlisting their input I have been able to include some unsung heroes in my top 100.
Therefore, my thanks go to the Federation of Family History Societies and to the Scottish Association of Family History Societies for their help.
If you find the suggested websites useful, please consider joining the relevant family history society where you will get even more support for your research.
Some of the sites I have chosen represent a type of resource. There are other excellent archive websites with indexes and transcriptions that I didn’t include as well as sites run by enthusiasts I didn’t have room for. I hope you enjoy my selection and that it inspires you to look further afield in your research. Better still, join a family history society and ask them for their advice – all the societies that helped with this list had lots of suggestions!