AccessGenealogy has been online since 1999. And we’ve always been free. What started out as a small 50-page website has evolved over 25 years to one of the leading websites in providing and showcasing where to find free genealogy. With over 350,000 links it is now one of the largest directories of genealogy websites. Our crowning achievement though, is in providing genealogy researchers an understanding of the available records and databases they can use to help uncover their Native American heritage.
The original plan was simple. On the one hand there were a large number of personal U.S. genealogy websites online, yet we didn’t have a good search engine like Google once was, to find them with. On the other hand, there were also a large number of family tree researchers coming online each year (usually after Christmas when they received a new desktop computer) who didn’t know how to find all these websites. Seeing the need for a United States centric directory, Judy White and I started AccessGenealogy.
Over the years that original idea shifted and grew as most ideas do. It was always about meeting the needs of our most avid user base. But also satisfying the curiosities of Judy and I. Judy is part Choctaw, and it was her relationship with other Native Americans who understood what genealogy information would best assist those researchers that guided us in compiling genealogy records. My Native American roots were much further back, but my own struggle to prove my connection helped me to craft a research process for other like-minded researchers.
Twenty-five years is a long time. My children have grown and now have children of their own. Judy’s eyesight is not what it once was, and she has largely left the online world. But I am still taking this website forward, still using my 25 years’ experience to build a better, more useful website for you.