Online Research sources

The internet has been very beneficial to people doing genealogy research.  Yes, the internet provides access to only a fraction of genealogy resources available and allows a log of inaccurate information to be upload and spread by innocent people.  BUT depending on what records are relevant to your ancestors, it may be feasible to do alot of research without physically leaving your chair at home.

I am lucky that a large portion of my branches have lived in Ontario for over 100 years, in some cases closer to 200 years.  Schells (my maternal grandfather's line) since about 1800; Bates and Mumbersons (my maternal grandmother's lines) since about 1850; Allens (my paternal grandfather's line) since 1830s.  The Coopers (my paternal grandmother's line) are the newcomers having only been in Canada since 1902. 

Although several branches of the Schells left Ontario to go to Michigan and further west, the families were large, so many Schell branches are still in Ontario.  Most importantly, my direct line has stayed in Ontario.  My other lines have had some members depart Ontario to migrate to the Canadian west, but again, my direct lines have stayed in Ontario.

Since most of the trees in my forest have remained in Ontario, the databases available on Ancestry are very beneficial to me.  Some of the databases are available on free sites, but may not include images (FamilySearch) or provide indexes (Library and Archives Canada).  And saves me a trip to the Archives of Ontario in Toronto.  Most public libraries provide access to Ancestry but usually require one to reserve time on a computer and limited that access to one or two hours. 

Yes, one can do alot of searching in that amount of time and I tried that for US and UK records at a time when my subscription was only for the Canadian site.  But as time went on, I found it so efficient to have ready access at my fingertips to the Ancestry databases that I upgraded my Ancestry subscription to world-wide. 

So now when I'm working on an individual, I can have Ancestry and my database on split screens going back and forth.  I can determine at a glance that the record is my ancestor, enter the information in my database, click and save a copy of the image and attach it to the record in my database.

As I participate in the Genealogy Do-Over, I started a new database and redoing all of my previous research, starting with what is available on Ancestry and other online resources before I start consulting books or venturing out into the field to repositories and court houses (I hadn't even gotten to that stage before the Do-Over).

It is slow going, but it is amazing all of the informaton I have been able to find.  Ancestry now provides access to indexed, digitized images of all of the Canadian censuses as well as Voters Lists from 1935-1974.  Ancestry also provides indexed, digitized images of Ontario birth, marriage and deaths for several decades.  What I cannot find on Ancestry, I will check FamilySearch as they offer some different databases, as well as having used different transcribers than Ancesty to index the databases that are duplicated. 


Google searches help to locate newspapers, funeral homes and cemeteries as well as genealogy societies or public library sites that make various databases available through their websites.

When I started with the Do-Over, I intended to refrain from accessing and using public member trees uploaded by individual on Ancestry and similar sites.  However, I have to admit that I will search a name and make use of information in the entries on those trees.  Using the information from those trees, I have been able to discover maiden names, names of parents of an in-law, children, etc which has assisted me to redo searches to find records verifying that information.

By the time I feel that I have exhausted all available online resources for an individual, I have fleshed out an individual's record as well as providing more foliage in my forest.