Prompt:  Write about your favorite genealogy web sites. It seems like a new web site pops up every day. Tell us about the ones you like best.

I have a handful of websites that I use regularly and are bookmarked in my Firefox browser’s bookmark toolbar.

Ancestry – Great starting place to find an array of information.  From censuses, to passenger lists, to city directories, to BMD records.  If I’m just starting a search for a particular person, I typically start here.

Family Search – This is usually my second stop, particularly the pilot search.  I have found several birth and marriage records for Cook County, Illinois (even though the collections are not yet complete) and BMD records for Michigan.

GenealogyBank – Oh the number of obituaries I have found here!  Love it.  I will typically use this site when I have a death date figured out.  I’ve not used the historical newspapers too much, as I find searches are a little harder since it is searching an image (using OCR??) as opposed to the other collection, which searches actual text.

Find A Grave – What a wonderful concept!  I have used this site to find gravestone photos/transcriptions for many of my relatives.  I am also a contributor.

Footnote, now Fold3 – I don’t use this one as often (although, I should since I pay for a subscription!!).  I have been able to find Revolutionary War information of relatives, but haven’t had much luck in other resources.  I also contribute information to this site.

Newspaper Archive – Another one that I have a paid subscription for that I don’t use too often.  There is a lot of great information out there, but I haven’t had much luck for my own research.