Research Links

The Black Family Genealogy and History Society (BFGHS) was established to encourage and promote interest in family history and genealogy, particularly that of African Americans. BFGHS is an educational Society, which communicates ethical standards and scientific methods of conducting genealogical research. BFGHS provides guidance on how to archive and preserve documents and information.

Published in Victoria, it became the leading paper in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, and was the paper for the province of British Columbia until the emergence of Vancouver and competitors in the 1890s.

The British Newspaper Archive contains around three million pages of newspaper content originally funded as part of a £3m contribution from JISC. This was an important initiative that contributed greatly to the British Library's digitisation of their historic newspapers.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a growing repository of historical California newspapers published from 1846-present, including the first California newspaper, the Californian, and the first daily California newspaper, the Daily Alta California. It also contains issues of current California newspapers, collected as PDFs, that are part of a project to preserve and provide access to contemporary papers.

Chronicling America is a free, searchable online database of historic American newspapers published between 1777 and 1963, digitized from all U.S. states and territories. Managed by the Library of Congress and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, it provides millions of newspaper pages to help the public access "history's first draft" from local community perspectives across the country. Users can browse the collection by topic or date, or use an advanced search to find specific information.

The Confederate Citizens File, 1861-1865 (known as the “Citizens File”) is a collection of records related to Southern civilians and businesses who provided goods and services to the Confederate government during the Civil War. The Citizens File collection contains over 650,000 vouchers and other related documents filed in over 350,000 alphabetically arranged jackets. The vouchers and accompanying records are alphabetized and organized by Business or Citizen. A Fold3 collection.

The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a comprehensive resource documenting every U.S. county boundary change from 1629 to 2000, available in interactive maps, GIS, KMZ, and PDF formats.

Elephind.com is a specialized search engine that helps users discover digitised historic newspapers from collections around the world—all in one place. Whether you're a family historian, member of a historical society, cultural heritage enthusiast, or simply someone passionate about the past, Elephind makes it easier to explore and discover the stories preserved in historic newspapers by searching across multiple collections at once. Unlike mainstream search engines that often overlook them, Elephind includes smaller, lesser-known regional, student, and community newspapers as part of its search. These publications often offer rare and valuable perspectives on historical events that can be difficult to find elsewhere.

FamilySearch is a free, online platform provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that helps people discover and connect with their ancestors through a massive collection of historical records, a collaborative global family tree, and research tools like the Research Wiki. Users can search billions of digitized records such as birth, marriage, and census documents, contribute their family information to the shared family tree, and access resources from the world's largest genealogical research facility, the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City.

Findmypast.com is a subscription-based genealogy service offering billions of digitized historical records, primarily from the UK, Ireland, Australia, and North America, to help people research and build their family trees. The platform combines historical records with family tree building tools, providing access to parish records, census data, newspapers, and more. Users can create a free account to search records, build family trees, and receive discoveries, though full access to record transcriptions and images typically requires a paid subscription.