A Surprising Source to Find Millions of Genealogy Websites

There are two problems with search engines like Google. First, they can give way too many irrelevant results. Second β€” how do you search for something that you don't know exists? That's when you need a good curated list of relevant sites. My go-to source for finding genealogy websites: Linkpendium. Let's take a look at the largest collection of links to genealogy websites. 

Find Genealogy Websites

More...

What Is Linkpendium?

Linkpendium is a site with more than 10 million links to genealogy resources. (That's a whole lot of websites!) It was created by Karen and Brian "Wolf" Leverich, the creators of RootsWeb β€” people who know about genealogy on the Internet. Those 10 million links include more than 1 million to U.S. resources, more than 9 million surname pages (worldwide), and about 10,000 UK links. 

It's also a search engine which covers 2.8 million of those pages. (More on that below.)

Not only are these sites curated (meaning that they've been met the criteria for covering something meaningful for family historians), the site is constantly monitored for dead links. (Don't you hate it when you click on a link and that page doesn't exist anymore? So do the Leverichs. That's why they check and get rid of the dead links.)

Linkpendium home page

Linkpendium's main page.

​The Location Links

Let's say that your research leads to Fayette County, Pennsylvania. You've seen what's on Ancestry and FamilySearch, but you know there's more out there. You go to Google and search for Fayette County Pennsylvania genealogy... and you get 218,000 results. (Yeah, Fayette County has a lot of genealogy, but 218,000? I don't think so.) Let's find the meaningful stuff. 

Go to LInkpendium.com and scroll down to the Genealogy Links section. There you'll see links to all 50 US states, plus American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Click on Pennsylvania. 

The top of each state page has a link to statewide resources, followed by links to each county (or parish, if you're looking at Louisiana). The number after each link shows how many links are on that page. 

Linkpendium - Pennsyvlania genealogy page

Linkpendium: Pennsylvania page

Scroll down to the county you want (in this case, Fayette) and click on it. You'll get a links for genealogy resources pertaining to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, broken down by category. Each county page also has links to the surrounding counties. You can also tell if a site is free or requires a subscription; subscription sites are noted with "($)" after them.

Linkpendium - Fayette County, Pennsylvania genealogy sites

A small portion of the Fayette County, Pennsylvania page.

These aren't just sources like Ancestry, FamilySearch, and RootsWeb. There are links to resources at libraries, archives, societies, government agencies, non-profits, for-profits β€” all categorized and easy to find. 

NOTE to genealogy societies: Go to the appropriate county or state page and submit links not only for your society, but also any databases you have. (You'll find a link to the submission form at the top and bottom of each county and state page.) It's free advertising! 

The Surname Links

Links to surname resources make up the bulk of Linkpendium's links. To find the surname that you want, either use the search box on the right-hand side of the page or scroll down on the main page to the "Surnames: Worldwide" section and click on the first letter of the name. Keep clicking through the appropriate sections. Here's a portion of the page for the Skinner family.

Linkpendium - surnames

A small portion of the Skinner surname page on Linkpendium.

Don't be confused by the difference between the category and where the link is from. For example, the biography of J.O. Skinner is listed under "Meigs County, Ohio," but it came from the Iowa USGenWeb site. That's because his biography mentions that he was born in Meigs County, Ohio. (There's also a link under Polk County, Iowa, which is the county history where his biography appeared.)

By the way, while researching this article, I found a link to the biography of a possible collateral relative in the Presbyterian Ministerial Directory, 1898 on Google Books. I doubt I would have found it without Linkpendium. I never knew he was a Presbyterian minister and wouldn't have thought to look in that book. But Linkpendium listed his biography under Perry County, Ohio, which is where my Skinners are from. (Now to confirm that he's my guy!)

Linkpendium: The Family Discoverer Search Engine

As if the links weren't enough, Linkpendium offers a search engine that covers 2.8 million of the links that they have. (Why not all of them? Not all resources are searchable. You really should do the search and browse the location and surname pages for best coverage.)

On the main page, you can enter a surname, a first name (optional), and a location (either "worldwide" or a US state). 

Linkpendium - Family Discoverer search engine

Linkpendium: Family Discoverer Search Engine

The Family Discoverer Search Engine will scour the 2.8 million sources that it covers. I recently did a search for George Debolt (worldwide) and got 73 results. Yes, it's fewer results than I would have gotten on Google, but they are more meaningful results. (When it comes to search results, I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week!)

Your Turn

Go try Linkpendium and leave a comment letting me know what you found!

Linkpendium source for genealogy websites
Posted: March 23, 2018.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Great post, Amy! Quality over quantity saves a tremendous amount of time. Let us know what you find out about that potential collateral relative. πŸ™‚

  • Amy, this encouraged me to take a harder look at Linkpendium. Have you checked out LDSGenealogy.com? I’ve been liking it lately. Super well-organized by state and county. Links directly to Ancestry and Familysearch data sources as well as local ones.

    • Linkpendium also includes Ancestry and FamilySearch resources. I looked at LDSGenealogy.com a long time ago; I’ll take another look.

  • Have been using Linkpendium for several years and have found MANY answers to find my ancestors! Good on surnames, but really like places! Thanks for helping others.

  • Once I found linkpendium’s vast resources, I have used them and recommended them for years! Nothing like it out there.

  • I checked it out and definitely will add it to my list of tools! I had never heard of it until your post. Thank you for the information Amy!

  • I tried, with not great results. Did a person search for my great-grandfather, Frederick Ferdinando, knowing there are news reports etc about him, as well as a public tree. Nothing. So I tried just Ferdinando. Some decent hits, but nothing for Frederick and in the first two pages of results, it didn’t find my 4th cousins Ferdinando website which has been around for 20+ years. British-based, so maybe that’s the issue. I will certainly recommend it for anyone doing American research as that seems to be its strength.

  • Thank you for sharing.

    Unfortunately for me, I met up with myself on many of the links with my main surnames; or I saw someone I had connected with researching them whose work I was already aware of. There was one broken link; at least it didn’t come up for me. It was the one for Russian immigrants. And, sadly, with Rootsweb down that doesn’t help because some of the links are on Rootsweb.

    I feel it is worth a try though! It is a tool that helps us leave no stone unturned.

  • This is a fantastic help for my research for my USA family and ancestors in Ohio- which I have trouble getting documentation about. Am now rejuvenated with my searches. Thank you so much for posting this information. The documentation supports the verbal information given to me by my mother and grandmother-whom I can no longer access for information. A little difficult to get there from Australia so very grateful.