Keys to the Past - The history of Durham and Northumberland. (Tip - Follow this link which will produce a 'not found' error but will then open an extreamly useful map service allowing you to scroll and zoom in on any area and compare modern and 'old' maps dating from 1856.)
GENUKI
- Genealogy Information Service United Kingdom and Ireland. Includes detailed
areas covering Northumberland, Durham and other counties.
NB all of these sites seem to display better in Internet Explorer 8 than Firefox
MyHeritage.com - a site which allows you to keep your records online. You can import a Gedcom file to it and it will construct a website for you inclusing photographs. It will also find matches between yours and others websites and put you in touch so you can colaberate. The site has some interesting face recognition software allowing you to complare photographs. Free for up to 500 entries, $75 per year for up to 2,500 people and $119.40 for an unlimited tree. It's disadvantage is that once your 'free' site has more than 500 individuals the only way of updating the site is to delete it, make changes then re-upload a gedcom file.
Genes Reunited - Another 'keep you records online' website. Offers free, standard (£9.95 for 6 mths) and Gold (£34.95 for 6 mths). Free membership allows you to create your tree (unlimited) but not to send messages to other members. Standard membership is good value. Gold membership also allows you access to the complete set of available census records 1841-1901, 1837-2004 birth marriage and death records and military death records for WW1 and WW2; again good value. It's disadvantage is that you cannot copy a section of another member's site and import it into your own. You must either type the information in or send a message to the member requesting they e-mail you a gedcom file of the information required. Many members do not know how to do this.
Ancestry.co.uk - Allows you to store your records online and includes features such as timelines for an individual. Three levels of paid membership which all include birth marriage and death indexes and census records, full WW1 records, phone book records, newspaper archives and university records; Essentials (£83.40 or £10.95 per month); Premium (£107.40 or £12.95 per month and gives you access to pre 1837 probate records and Irish records); Worldwide (£155.40 or £18.95 per month and gives you access to all international records in the Ancestry.com collection)
MyFamily.com This is basically the Ancestry site but also allows a family area where family may stay in touch, post messages, discussions, photographs, video and sound recordings. Example website. You may create the site free and invite family as members. Each member may post up to 100MB per month to the site which is supported by advertising. For an additional $29.95 per year adverts are removed and each member may upload 1Gb of data. Seems a pretty good deal to me.
Found an interesting or
useful link - e-mail it to us at