More great websites
Alongside dedicated forum sites, there are lots of forums that form part of larger commercial websites or communities. You can check the health of a forum from the homepage, which usually includes statistics relating to posts, threads, active users, all-time members and more. The biggest forum not in our top five is Ancestry’s RootsWeb ( rootsweb.ancestry.com). It is huge, free, and is broken down into the WorldConnect Project, Genealogy mailing lists, the WorldConnect Global Search, the RootsWeb Surname List and the Share Your Family History sections. First-time users may feel overwhelmed, so begin with the ‘Getting Started’ link. Then click ‘Message Boards’ – home to some 25 million posts on more than 198,000 boards, dedicated to surnames, localities and more.
Military examples include the British Medal Forum ( british medalforum.com) and the excellent Anglo Boer War Forum ( angloboerwar.com/forum), which has a generous and bustling section dedicated to genealogical discussions. Similarly, victorianwars. com has a section for ‘Researching Individual Soldiers & Sailors’.
A great example of a busy regional history hub is the Birmingham History Forum ( birmingham history.co.uk/forum) or there’s the Scotland-wide talkingscot.com/forum. Other general examples include GenForum ( genforum.genealogy.com), LostCousins Genealogy Forums ( forums.lc/genealogy/index.php), British Genealogy & Family History Forums ( british- genealogy.com), Family History UK ( forum.familyhistory.uk.com), Historum ( historum.com) and Family Tree Forum ( familytreeforum.com/forum.php).
The deeper you delve into the subject of genetic genealogy, the harder it becomes to wade through technicalities and jargon. For this reason, it’s just the kind of topic where a bit of straighttalking from the forum can help. The largest have areas devoted to the topic, or you can try forums.familytreedna.com.
FamilySearch discontinued its well-hidden forum in 2012, replacing it with the ‘Ask/ help’ area ( familysearch. org/ask) and the valuable Research Wiki. Meanwhile, Findmypast’s ‘Feedback’ section ( feedback. findmypast.co.uk), where users often vented frustration, has become the more positive-sounding ‘Ideas Board’ (for new feature requests).