Women's History Month 2016: Tip #4 Expand Your Search

Expand your search beyond the resources found solely on your computer
Jay Mantri/Pixabay

So if you read Tip #3 and started working on a survey you might have noticed some repositories that were new to your genealogy search. Good! Expanding your search beyond the comfortable is important. It's by expanding your search that you find information you would never have found otherwise.

So yesterday's tip suggested identifying the following repositories for your research:

• Libraries (public, private, state, academic, genealogical)
• Archives (regional, private, state, academic)
• Museums (history, topical, religious)
• Government entities (courthouse, recorder)
• Websites (free and fee based, digitized book websites. Look for records/databases for the place/s your ancestor lived)

This list can be intimidating. That's a lot of places to look. So this is where a comprehensive catalog incorporating multiple repositories is vital.

Some catalogs you should use include:

• WorldCat
• ArchiveGrid
• Digital Public Library of America

You may also be interested in:

• Online Archive of California
• Mountain West Digital Library
• ArchivesWest

For portal websites that will help you find additional genealogy websites please see:

• Cyndi's List
• Linkpendium