The advent of computers has made the task genealogy research much easier for today’s generation. No tools are more vital for the researcher’s work than Genealogical Search Engines. A few strokes on a keyboard can sift through massive amounts of online data to uncover valuable information, saving hours and months of painstaking and expensive labor.

The genealogy researcher uses keywords such as an ancestor’s surname or birthplace or a family association to narrow the search field. Generalized Internet searches will provide thousands of search results and should not be neglected. However, the use of genealogical search engines, specialized online databases whose contents are limited to information of interest for genealogy research, may provide more relevant search findings.

Online directories are websites listing a collection of genealogical search engines. Examples include: www.cyndislist.com, www.ancestorhunt, or www.genealogytoolbox.com.

Genealogical search engines that require a paid subscription include: www.ancestry.com, www.footnote.com, www.historykat.com, and www.worldvitalrecords.com.

Even though physical copies of birth, marriage and death certificates must be purchased from state authorities, information about births, marriages, and deaths in the United States is available in many online genealogical search engines. Search the online records at the local office of the National Archives and Records Administration, www.archives.gov, or look for the Social Security Death Index and other birth and marriage records at www.ancestry.com.

Newspaper obituaries are another important source of genealogy information. In addition to time of death, obituaries also may include information about the person’s birthplace and names of family members, both those still living and those who are deceased. In addition to searching the online archives of individual newspapers, some obituaries may be found in genealogical search engines. Examples include: www.obituaries.com and www.legacy.com.