There’s more than one way to find useful information on the Internet. While a name approach may be the first thing we try, searching by place (locality) is more common for the experienced researcher. While the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) has a surname section as well as a locality section, the FHLC has many of us in the habit of thinking by locality first. A locality catalog generally lists what is available in a particular collection based on the geographic area to which each item pertains. Once we focus on a locality, we may still end up looking for a surname (we usually do), but the first focus is the place. This is what I mean by a locality approach.

The World Wide Web has many lists (or catalogs) or records, but most are only a small subset of the web. There’s never been a comprehensive list of sites that is close to being a catalog. Now, serious efforts are being made to create an extensive locality catalog for all web content by place. The two major projects are WorldGenWeb and FamilySearch Browse Categories.

The first effort to organize this for all localities in the whole world was WorldGenWeb at www.worldgenweb.org. WorldGenWeb divides the world into regions represented on a map (see below)

UKGenWeb, at www.britishislesgenweb.org, has the following for each country and county:

• county selection chart and/or map showing the counties of the country, with a link to the county page and the email address of the page maintainer
• surname lists of names being researched by registered individuals (members’ interests)
• mailing list for those interested in the county (distributed messages by email)
• querypage for queries about ancestors; to add yours or read those left by others)
• lookups where volunteers offer to look up something in a reference book or resource. The lookup page lists the resource and the volunteer’s email address.

County pages and surname lists were already being done by GENUKI (GENealogy of the United Kingdom and Ireland) at www.genuki.org.uk/big/, so UKgenWeb merely added links to GENUKI pages rather than duplicate a competing list. GENUKI's a good example of a web locality catalog. It's built with the same structure as the Family History Library Catalog. They use exactly the same localities and topics as the FHLC. Items available on the web -- instructional articles, descriptions, abstracts, original records, or whatever -- are listed first by the locality to which they pertain, and secondly by subject.

For example, a history of a naval engagement is listed under Great Britain since the Navy served the whole kingdom. The subject is Military Records. It appears as

A record of an Assize Court, which serves several English counties, is listed under

England - Court Records.

while a record of marriages in a single church would be listed under

England, (name of county), (name of parish) - Church Records.

For more information about GENUKI and other English Internet sites, see www.alanmann.com/class/files/England.htm and www.alanmann.com/class/index.

The USGenWeb Project (www.usgenweb.org) requires a web site for each state and separate pages for each county within a state. The project is completed, but remains fluid as some of the thousands of volunteers resign or are unable to continue. The boon to genealogy researchers is an easy way to find what’s available for the places your ancestors lived. Each page is required to follow guidelines, which mandate what each state must have. These include many of the same things as UKGenWeb (above), plus

• state resource page provides some basic research help for the state or county, including names & addresses of societies, archives, and libraries for the state
• Archives is where files of extracted records are stored--typically maps, Bible records, marriage or church records, censuses, cemetery headstones, histories, or other records
• Other - some states have additional requirements. If the state you are interested in shows a FAQ, be sure you read or download it. Also a variety of links, including a link to the The USGenWeb Project Archives. The archives searches are at searches.rootsweb.com/htdig/search.html for national search & at www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ussearch.htm for state by state searches.

USGenWeb county pages often include Biographies, Obituaries, Genealogies, and Bible records. USGenWeb also spearheads efforts to transcribe and other special projects, namely:

• The Census Project
• The Military Records Project
• National and International Links Project

• The Tombstone Project
• Lineage Project

Although Richard Wilson has already taught USGenWeb, take a look at:

1. The Indiana state page at www.usgenweb.org/IN
2. The Kentucky page (note biographies and vital records online)
3. The Iowa site is another good state site (check out Muscatine or Dubuque county)
4. The Clark county, Indiana section.

The format to go directly to any state USGenWeb page is to use the web address of

where XX is the two letter abbreviation for the state desired. You will probably find references to online resources you didn’t know about, and the query and other databases available may provide you with more information about your family. Take some time -- it’s well worth it.

The new FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service (www.familysearch.org) includes a "browse categories" option. This section attempts to categorize the content of the web by place and topic. Like GenUKI, it uses the Family History Library Catalog as a model, with some additional topics (such as web hosting or genealogy vendors) as categories.

Web pages listed are examined by volunteers, who identify the places and topics for each web page. The site groups one hundred (or so) FHLC topics into 16 general categories, namely:

Each general category contains records for each of the topics within that category. For example, the general category Vital Records includes the FHLC topics Bible Records, Cemeteries, Church Records, Civil Registration, Divorce Records, Funeral Homes, Obituaries, and Vital Records as well as a link to the International Genealogical Index.

Because each page has to be reviewed by a volunteer, not all pages on the web are listed. However, the site lists nearly two hundred thousand web pages and continues to grow daily. You can help this project by using the "Add-a-Site" feature to recommend useful web pages you know of that aren’t currently listed. The main advantage of "Search Web Sites" is that the keyword search is a full text search (not just a description or header search like Cyndi’s List).

WorldGenWeb, USGenWeb, and GENUKI are examples of useful aids for a locality catalog approach to the Internet. They are not all inclusive–they do miss some things. Another way to find useful information by locality is to use a list of links to web sites in categories. The largest, most used genealogy web sites are often categorized lists whose categories include localities (geographic areas). The following web sites have geographic categories for the whole world, but those for the states within the United States use the following formats:

• Cyndi’s List (www.cyndislist.com/xx.html)
• Genealogy Site Finder (www.genealogy.com/links/)
• Fuller’s Genealogy Resources on Internet (www-personal.umich.edu/~cgaunt/yyyy.html)
• Everton (www.everton.com/usa/xx.htm)
• Lineages American Reading Rooms (www.lineages.com/usa/state.asp?StateCode=XX)
• RootsWeb US resources (www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/USA/xx.html)
• USGenWeb (www.usgenweb.org/XX)

In these examples, just replace the xx with the two letter abbreviation for the state you want (use upper- or lower-case as shown), or replace the yyyy with the name of the state spelled out. For example, if you want Vermont, replace xx with vt, XX with VT, and yyyy with vermont. Most of the above also have lists for foreign countries (USGenWeb can be replaced by WorldGenWeb).

The above bulleted sites are useful in taking a locality approach to finding useful information. These sites are usually enough to help you find what’s available for your locality of interest.

USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb are ongoing, growing projects. As more people help and as time allows for continued improvements, these sites will improve and expand. You can do your part to help them develop by doing one or more of the following:

1. Tell others about these sites and how to use them. The more people use them, the more successful they are likely to be (and the more people will do something else on this list).
2. Volunteer to help. Each of these projects are created and maintained by volunteers. They always need new helpers to replace those that burn out, retire, or become unable to help.
3. Look at their web pages. If you know of something useful on the web for that locality that they don’t show, let them know (email links usually appear on most pages).
4. See how their web pages can help you. If you can think of a better way, or something that is missing, let them know. Everyone will benefit if the idea truly is an improvement.
5. Work on an extraction or other project, then see that the resulting data is made available to their site in the proper place.
6. Offer to do lookups for something specific to which you have easy access.
7. Leave a query about your ancestor. The more queries, the more likely visitors will succeed.

Remember, you can be an equal participant in the web. If something out there is less than you think it should be, maybe your help can improve it. Finally, don’t overlook finding things on the web by time period within a locality. For example, see www.oocities.org/Heartland/6266/colonial.htm