|
Using the
Internet
INTERNET RESOURCES
With massive amounts of
information now on the internet, using your computer is an extremely
powerful and effective way to gain access to data from around the world.
Unfortunately, not all information is available in any single protocol.
This section covers, very briefly, several of the more popular
resources.
The most popular internet resource
is the web. It has millions
of documents created by businesses, colleges, and individuals. It is
also by far the fastest growing part of the net with an average of 1500
businesses added to the web every day. There are also many individuals
and non-commercial sites added each day. Programs called web browsers
are used to access web information. The most popular ones are Firefox
and Internet Explorer.
E-mail is the electronic means of
communication from one individual to another. When you get an internet
account you'll use an ID that is unique to the server -- a way of
identifying yourself. By this ID, anyone on the internet can send a message
to you. A message can be a few words or many pages. It can even be a
short message with a longer document attached. The message is held in a
mailbox at the server until the next time you log on and ask to check
your e-mail. Then it is delivered to your computer. This is an important
and useful function of internet. It also happens to be the most used
resource. It can also be used to access Newsgroups or Listservs.
ListServ is an application of
e-mail which collects message by free subscription service. A topic is chosen
and a ListServ address is created. Anyone wanting to send a message to
the ListServ can do so, and a copy of that message will be sent to every
subscriber of the ListServ. The risk with ListServ is that you may get
more messages than you have time to read.
FTP stands for File Transfer
Protocol. It is a means by which files can be transferred from one site
to another. The FTP program automatically connects to the remote site,
logs on, and starts transferring the requested file to your computer.
Newsgroups are discussion
platforms for people to share information and talk about a single
subject. The more narrow the topic, the more likely that the discussion
will be of interest to those who subscribe (to subscribe is to have your
computer automatically pick up all new messages in that newsgroup every
time you request it). There are over 20,000 newsgroups devoted to just
about any subject you may choose to investigate.
INTERNET DATABASES
There are many, many resources
online now where you can find genealogical data - some are commercial,
others are free. (Before investing in a commercial subscription you
would be wise to see if you can locate your required information in one
of the free sites.)
Here are just a few of the more
popular databases where you might locate a few ancestors.
-
Ancestry
$$
-
Rootsweb (free)
-
Archive.org
- this is an online library of old,
out-of-copyright books. Use the upper form-box for your
search.
-
Google.com - like Archive.org,
Google has out-of-copyright books, but you can also view excerpts
from *some* current books.
INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETIES
This section contains a few links
representative of web sites and genealogical
societies that many researchers use frequently, but also link to sites
with more complete lists of genealogical societies.
Links to sites with more
comprehensive lists of societies:
U.S. National Societies
U.S. state and local societies
British societies
Societies of other countries
Your next step from here is to do
a search of the Web for societies in your own area of research.
Next:
The Art of Surfing (the Web)
Return
to
For the Beginner |
