Genealogy
There are three possible ways in which Internet may help you in this
field.
- There are databases of people collected by some institutions. For example
the list of people in the US who have or who have had a social
security number. There are some other lists as well like the
database of the early imigrants into Canada.
There might be some other lists like this connected to other countries
as well. If you find any, please, let me know. There are also the Mormons,
you know...
- Another option is to look for your relatives directly using search
engines like AltaVista
for example. You simply enter the name in question as the string to be
searched for. I myself have found two people in the US in this way, another
one in Germany and one more back here. Good luck!
- The last thing to think about comes into mind when you already have
collected all the data one possibly could about your relatives. You have
hundreds of small papers flying all around containing important information.
Now even the very thought of attempting to draw the family chart makes
you mad instantly. Here comes the computer age to help you out. There are
dozens of different computer genealogy
programs. They know how to store your data (names, dates, text
files, picture files, audio files, relations between people) and how to
draw lots of different genealogy charts which one is so much interested
in. There is even a convention for data compatibility which should enable
you to switch to another program when you grow tired of the one you have
acquired before. Since lots of people probably investigate their kin there
are zillions of small size databases around the world by now. If these
were made accesibble to others that would be something! Think about it!
Also there are some local
genealogical societies some of which have their own homepages
which might have some other useful ideas for your research.