Dave Naylor's & Bernie Bradner's

Useful Genealogy Links

This page was created to provide a list of handy genealogy links to participants in classes that Dave Naylor co-teaches with Bernie Bradner to genealogy researchers.  We hope you find these useful to your research.

Genealogy Software:

• Get a really good, free, genealogy program for Windows (actually, we believe it's the best).  You will be asked to supply an e-mail address to initiate the download.

  Download Legacy Here

• GEDstrip is a program Dave wrote which uses a standard gedcom to generate genealogy web pages showing the non-living individuals in your family tree.  In order to encourage contact and communication it does *not* provide the links between individuals or any tree structure.  This program is intended solely as an aid to contact others researching the same lines as yourself.
  Go to the GEDstrip download page.
  If you wish to place a complete family tree on the web then use the Legacy Family Tree program instead.

Research Guides and Help:

• The LDS Family Search Wiki.  An excellent guide to Web resources for genealogy research.  Contains links to informative “How to” pages and research tools as well as a “Search” box.  Place your research location in the Search box and you'll likely get hundreds of hits to assist your research, and you may just find the clues you need to make that breakthrough.
• ISOGG's “DNA Testing” Wiki.  The best guide to DNA testing for genealogy and anthropology.  Written by members of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy.
• Family History Fanatics resources.  Check out Family History Fanatics' website.  Andy & Devon Lee provide a wealth of information and entertaining videos to help you with your family history and DNA research.

Genealogy Databases:

• Find-A-Grave's Cemetery and Memorial/Grave Database.  Find-A-Grave permits adding memorial/burial data to their database, and these memorials can be linked to that individual's parents', spouse's and children's memorials.  This then provides a fantastic research tool as long as researchers are adding the family links and a record can be found to start from.  If you are a serious researcher then become a Find-A-Grave member and ensure that your ancestors' on-line memorials contain complete data and are linked together correctly.
• Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites.  An excellent informational site with the links that aren't here!
• Olive Tree Genealogy.  An excellent site with on-line databases — especially useful for Canadian research.
• GenealogyLinks.Net.  Links for many countries including the UK and Canada.
• Search the latest L.D.S. database.  This is the latest Latter-day Saints' (Mormons') database of vital and census records that is available to non-members.
• Hugh Wallis' I.G.I. Batch Numbers.  A site to simplify searching complete families in North America and the British Isles using the above I.G.I.
• The Obituary Daily Times index.  Search this index of Canadian and U.S.A. newspaper obituaries to discover which newspapers may have items of interest.
• LinkPendium – Genealogy Resource Directory.  A huge listing of website links searchable by given/surname names and/or locality.
• Miscellaneous Internet Databases.  Lots of genealogy data reside on the Internet, much of it being on RootsWeb's user pages.
  Use this search tool, provided by Randy Majors, to eliminate much of the chaff from your searches.
• RootsWeb's World Connect.  Rootsweb used to contain lots of free information provided by other researchers, but many years ago Rootsweb was purchased by Ancestry.com and each year more features are being deleted, and along with that a huge loss of free information.  Effective 2024 all Rootsweb sites have been frozen by Ancestry.com so what remains will slowly become outdated and no updated information will be forthcoming.  However something may remain here that could be useful to your research.

Canadian Databases:

• Library and Archives Canada.  Government of Canada's databases of online and offline materials available to researchers.  This site can be searched for a wealth of official documents including: Land Petitions, Military documents, Naturalization records from 1915 to 1951, census records, and the Canada Gazette newspaper from 1841 to 1997 (Canada's official newspaper of record for all government announcements).  Customize the search to suit your needs.
• Canadian Government's Census Search.  This new search engine for Canadian census records covers the years 1825 to 1931.  Multiple years and provinces can be selected in a single search.

• Prince Edward Island Online Archives.  Searchable baptism, marriage and death registrations for non-living individuals, Census records, and other Provincial Government records such as Petitions, Court cases, Maps, Photographs, etc.
• Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics.  Searchable birth, marriage and death registrations for non-living individuals.
• New Brunswick Vital Statistics.  Searchable birth, marriage and death registrations in various databases.  This web site also has data from land records, military, immigration, directories, cemeteries, newspapers, and other sources.
• The Ontario Vital Statistics Project.  A "work-in-progress" index (now frozen by Ancestry.com) of Ontario registrations of births, marriages and deaths, plus indexes for Canadian censuses.
• Ontario GenWeb Census Project — for all other Ontario censuses.  First select the County/District then click on a tab to select the census year.  It's getting there but there's still lots more to be done.  They need more volunteers to transcribe data from microfilms — hint!
• Ontario Genealogical Society's Cemetery Index.  An index of over 6,000 cemeteries in Ontario.  Searchable by name, location, etc.
• Archives of Ontario's Crown Land Records – Research Guide 
• McGill University's Surname Search of 1874–1881 Ontario Historical Atlases.  On-line search of surnames found on county maps contained in Ontario's Historical Atlases.  The maps can be viewed on-line and downloaded.  Some atlases contain biographical and other data about more-prominent families.  The Historical Atlases are available at many Ontario libraries.
• Our Ontario Discovery Portal — search on-line through a multitude of Ontario records, newspapers, images, videos, etc.
• Manitoba Vital Statistics.  Searchable registrations of births (>100 years ago), marriages (>80 years ago) and deaths (>70 years ago).
• Saskatchewan Vital Statistics.  Searchable registrations of births (>100 years ago), marriages (>75 years ago) and deaths (>70 years ago).
• British Columbia Archives genealogy databases.  Searchable registrations of births (1854–1903), baptisms (1836–1888), marriages (1859–1943), and deaths (1872–1998), with graphic files.
• U.B.C's Historical Newspapers.  The University of British Columbia's collection of historical newspapers from across the province —  ranging from the Abbotsford Post to the Nelson Tribune and dates from 1865 to 1924.  Articles are not limited to B.C.  Fully searchable by keyword, date and/or newspaper title.  Pages can be downloaded in graphic or PDF formats.

• Family Search's list of links to Online Canadian Records
• Canada GenWeb.  Links to provincial information and various data files.
• Canada GenWeb's Cemetery Project.  A searchable database of Canadian cemetery transcriptions and photos.
• GenealogyLinks.Net.  More links for Canadian genealogy.

British Isles Databases:

• GenUKI.  A web starting point for UK and Irish genealogy.
• Irish Genealogy.ie.  This site contains a vast amount of records for Irish genealogical research.  A must-visit for anyone researching Irish individuals.
• British Census Indexes, Transcripts, and Images available on-line or on CD.  Daniel Morgan's listing of British census availability by county.
• Search the 1881 British census using the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (Mormons') database.   Note: this does require having a Family Search account (free).
• Census of Ireland – Information for All Years.  Status of census records available for Ireland, including fragments and substitutes.
• Census of Ireland Search Engine.  Search and view the on-line 1821 to 1851, and 1901 & 1911 Census of Ireland pages.
• UK FreeCEN Search.  UK census data for 1841 through 1891 (and possibly later).  Includes overseas and ships.
• UK FreeREG Search.  UK Parish Register search for births, baptisms, marriages and burials of mostly pre-1881 records.
• UK FreeBMD Search.  England and Wales civil registration index information for births, marriages, and deaths for the period 1837 to 1992.
• UK BMD.  United Kingdom Births/Marriages/Deaths.  Links to county and other indexes of births, marriages and deaths.  New data is being added as it becomes available.
• UK Deceased OnLine.  Free search for dates of burial or cremation (may provide date of death).  There is a charge for further information.
• UK National Archives – Research guides.  An alphabetical list of guides available for over 360 different historical subjects. To limit the listing to only on-line records place a check-mark in the box at upper-right (Show only guides with all records online).
• The British Newspaper Archive.  Free search of various historical British newspapers.  Like most British data, there is a small charge to download the graphic images.
• Scotland's People.  The official Scottish government source of genealogical data — online births/marriages/deaths, census data, wills and parish records.
• GenealogyLinks.Net.  More links for the UK and more (over 50,000).

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