Follow Friday - Cyndi's List

I have been a follower of Cyndi's List since it first began. (Yep, I'm old as dirt folks!) After all, anyone with name like Cyndi has to be pretty special, right? (Yeah, I know... shameful aren't I?) I've even been mistaken for this Cyndi on more than one occasion, and had to direct them to the correct Cyndi.

And just who is this Cyndi?  Well, we're talking about Cyndi Ingle. That remarkable woman who started this blog in 1996. (Oh my! Now that is some kind of history today for a blog!) I can remember when everything she had was listed on a single page with links. Now, we're talking about so many pages, I can't even begin to discover it all!  And Cyndi's doesn't cost you one red cent. Although, donations are accepted, even those weren't done for many, many years! Cyndi provides this all as a service for those who simply want to find ways to research their family tree. And above all of the genealogy based web sites I have used the most, Cyndi's List has been the one that far outshines any I can recommend to you.

From her bog site, let me let Cyndi tell you why she does this: " The short answer is because I have fun doing this and I'm really happy to hear the great success stories that have come to people through using the list. The list began as a project for my local genealogical society in order to help our members find resources online. I want to make it easy for all researchers to find online resources for their genealogical research. I once read that the Internet is like a library with its books strewn all over the floor. I guess I'd like my list to be the card-catalog for the genealogy section of that library. And after all these years, I honestly believe that this is what I was meant to do. I’m very lucky that something I love to do has become a vocation."

Those of us who have been there all these years, know that it hasn't always been an easy path for Cyndi. And at least once or twice, she even considered giving it up. Thankfully for all of us, and that includes you, she never has! She has persevered, and is probably THE MOST used, and well-loved genealogy resource site in the Internet today!

I love how one of the comments from a user on her site states, and I am paraphrasing here, that she's kind of like the Dewey Decimal System of the genealogy world! Cyndi, herself, states she compares herself to a library strewn with books. You might go and look up one you need to find, but while there, you might also find one, or two, or a dozen, more that will help you! And yes, that's exactly what Cyndi's List is like! I can honestly say, that not once when I have gone there have I only copied one link. I usually copy a dozen, or more! How can that be? Surely I would have them all copied by now! Right?

Wrong! You see, Cyndi works daily on this site. She adds new links and new information every single day! Simply sign up for her newsletter and you'll be amazed at how much she puts into this! And the site is effortless to navigate through.  With the amount she adds, so often, you'd think it would be a jumbled maze!

I can honestly tell you, it's always been a breeze to find what you need here.

If there's one site you want to follow, this is it. Cyndi's List.

Head on over there right now, and be sure and tell Cyndi, that the other Cyndi has sent you there! Tell her 'hey!' for me.

My Favorite Genealogy Web Site

Genea Challenge #29 is to Write about your favorite genealogy web sites.

I actually have several favorite sites. Probably number one on mine, and many others, list is Ancestry.com. I've had a $299 membership with them for years, and will continue to do so as long as I can scrape together the money every year! The plethora of documents available on this site alone has saved me literally thousands, [I mean in the tens of thousands] of dollars in travel and research expense. That has far more than paid for the yearly membership cost! For anyone who is unable to travel to the source, I highly recommend this site!

Another site I have used over and over is Footnote. This is another pay site. But I have obtained military records for Civil War era family members, and client research, that I was unable to retrieve when sending to NARA for! And this site just keeps right on growing and expanding! The clarity of their scans at times far-exceeds even that of Ancestry!

NewspaperArchive.com is another pay site. But it literally paid for itself in the very first day that I purchased it! My husband's family has a very notorious "Old West" outlaw in it. I would have had to travel to Texas and Oklahoma to get copies of the newspaper articles that were printed about him back in the day. And then, I would have had to have known which papers to research, or spent days and days in local libraries searching through microfiche! However, in one single afternoon I was able to uncover over 40 articles on this old rascal! What a find! I wouldn't be without this site!

I am a big fan of Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. Whenever I hit a roadblock, and don't know where to turn to next, I inevitably head over to Cyndi's List. And I would feel safe in saying that 9 out of 10 times I go there I am at least headed in the right direction when I leave. Cyndi has literally THOUSANDS of Internet sites for you to head out to check on research material. What a treasure!

Family Search is another great site. While I haven't had alot of luck in utilizing their numerous family trees that are posted, they have often guided me in knowing what area I should be researching, or in giving me clues on how to continue my research. Family Search has also been quietly expanding, and adding numerous records to their site. As a big Texas researcher, I was especially pleased when they added the Texas Death Certificates to their site!

West Virginia Division of Culture and History has a wonderful WV Vital Research Records site. Here you can find Birth, Death and Marriage records for most all of the counties in West Virginia. Many dating back to 1800 and moving forward into the 1960's. The majority of my personal research has been in West Virginia and Virginia, so this has become my personal treasure trove!

The Library of Virginia is another hidden treasure for those researching Virginia ancestry. Here I have uncovered Land Grants, and Bible records for my own family, and many I've been researching. While the site does not allow you to print off these documents, it does allow you to order them at a modest fee. And believe me, there's nothing like holding these documents i your hands!

I have also become a huge fan of genealogy blogs. Most of them I receive daily in my news reader [I utilize NewsGator]. There's a few without an RSS feed, and those I go to directly, having saved them in my "Favorites" folder.

I am especially fond of Dick Eastman's Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. Dick offers his free daily newsletter [usually having more than 5 posts per day!!!]. And he offers a paid subscription which includes the free and a weekly newsletter that when printed out will make a small book! [Last week's was over 30-pages!] [Incidentally, I don't recommend printing it out! How about saving it instead, and reading it later? You can save the Plus Edition in a PDF format, and view it at your leisure.]

I also like the Ancestry.com blogs. These are very informative. You won't find them any better!

And I could go on and on! [I think I subscribe to about 125 genealogy blogs!]. But for a really good over view of genealogy blogs, and to get a great insight to writing a genealogy blog, you can't find a better reference than GeneaBloggers. Here you'll find a comprehensive list of blog sites. [If you look close enough, you'll even find the ol' Mountain Genealogists listed!]

Hope you've enjoyed my tour of my favorite genealogy web sites. This is only a small taste of the many I utilize on a daily basis. But these, as far as I am concerned, and in my humble opinion, are the BEST!!!