Highly Recommended Free Genealogy Related Web Services
that Can Help You Further Your Research - by Robert Ragan (Part 2)

My wife thinks that I am on the fast track to Geezerville because I turn 46 this month. I disagree with her on that, though. I've heard from my genealogy students and from readers of my Treasure Maps genealogy newsletter who are in their 70's, 80's and a few in their 90's who are still doing research, making some breakthroughs, and having a lot of fun in their senior years. I hope I can as well in the years to come.

I'm mentioning the "age" issue because this next free Web service I am going to share with you takes you back to your good ole school days.

What I find interesting is that yes, I graduated in 1978. That's close to thirty years ago. Also, I went to three different high schools in three different states.

And, here's the intriguing part...hundreds of my schoolmates, who are also in their mid-forties, have discovered and signed up with this service. But wait - so have people who have graduated 40 and 50 years ago, also!

Old friends have contacted me and I have contacted a few myself. I've used this service for years and have often thought in awe, "wow, technology has made this possible. This could have never happened otherwise," every time I talk with someone who I haven't heard from in ages.

Just wait until you see this first service. It is new to me and I think it has tons of potential. Take a look and I think you will agree.

I will take you step-by-step through through this free Web service, too:

This site covers places all over the world, but in this example I am going to use the U.S. because I went to school in America.

One of the schools I went to was in Arkansas. Look how many schools and people are in their databases.

The first letter of the city I am looking for is "N" for North Little Rock. NLR was a great place to live...

So, I click on the North Little Rock link.

Now it is the same step with the name of the school itself. I click on "N" for Northeast High School. You will choose your own school.

This is very simple to follow and you will do the same thing for your school or schools. You can add several schools to your profile. Remember, I went to three different high schools.

Here is an interesting fact: In the 1990s, the Northeast High School name was changed. Yet, there are still over 2100 members listed. Here is a wonderful database that holds a time capsule of sorts.

Sure, you can find old friends here and I hope you do. But this service also has great value for a genealogy researcher...

Now the final step. Enter in the required information and click on the "Submit" button.

This whole process is quick and easy.

Please make sure that you sign up so that you can follow along with me (using your schools, of course) for the rest of the lesson.

This is the school my wife went to.

These are the three schools that I went to.

I want to continue the lesson using Northeast High School as an example.

Here is how it looks. There are many wonderful features and message boards to see.

But what's this? A SEARCH feature. We genealogy folks like search features.

This is the basic search box.

But I want to find an old friend named Debbie Smith. If I search in this basic mode, I will get far too many results.

Look at the link that says, advanced search. That's what you will want to use.

This is much better. Here I can look for a person and narrow the search down to the State and City.

Look very carefully at these results:

• Debbie Harris (Harris being her maiden name) is now Debbie Smith. She married someone with the surname, Smith.
• Debbie Smith (Smith being her maiden name) is now Debbie Crownover.

Yes, find your old friends, but what about finding the ever elusive female surname? This can be very frustrating problem in genealogy research.

If you've been reading my guides and home study courses long enough, you know that I am big on taking "Clues" and using modern technology to help put the puzzle pieces together.

A note to my Pajama Genealogy students: This can be another "Stop" in your research process.

If you know what area some of your ancestors lived in, and can figure out what some of the schools in that area are...you can find some of your distant cousins--even the WOMEN!

Again, I graduated almost thirty years ago. Remember, some of the members of this Web service go way back.

We did a search for people. Don't forget to also do a search for places.

There were military bases near North Little Rock. I will do a search for army and Arkansas so you can see what to expect.

Here is just a small part of the list. You get the idea...you can use the clues that you have and even find some clues using this Web service.

Also don't forget that this is a community. You can post messages on the message boards and the community may be able to help you. And...this resource is just plain fun to use.

Do make sure that you sign up for this free Web service and use it, and also the awesome service mentioned in part one of this lesson.

My best to your and yours,

Robert Ragan

P.S. If by some strange chance you went to one of my schools back then, my nickname is "Randy" and I liked to play guitar. ;-)