General Resources

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Last Updated: 26 May 2022

HOME | EUROPE | NORTH AMERICA | OCEANIA | SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA | THE MIDDLE EAST

• Ancestry.com
• AncientFaces – “AncientFaces is a community that shows & tells the stories of the people from our lives with collaborative biographies. A living memorial where we can all share, and by working together, discover more about the people important to us. We remember our ancestors and loved ones by sharing photos, memories, and stories that show who they really were.”
• Artstor – “With approximately 300 collections composed of over 2.5 million images (and growing), scholars can examine wide-ranging material such as Native American art from the Smithsonian, treasures from the Louvre, and panoramic, 360-degree views of the Hagia Sophia in a single, easy-to-use resource.”
• Better Access to Data for Global Interdisciplinary Research (BADGIR) Archive
• Catalogo de la Cartoteca: Instituto Geografico Nacional
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission – “We honour and care for the men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars, ensuring they will never be forgotten. Funded by six Member Governments, our work began with building, and now maintaining, cemeteries at 23,000 locations all over the world.”
• Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names – “The [United States Holocaust Memorial] Museum’s Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names contains records on people persecuted during World War II under the Nazi regime including Jews, Roma and Sinti, Poles and other Slavic peoples, Soviet prisoners of war, persons with disabilities, political prisoners, trade union leaders, ‘subversive’ artists, those with Catholic and Lutheran clergy who were seen as opponents of the regime, resisters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, male homosexuals, and criminal offenders, among others.”
• David Rumsey Map Collection – “The David Rumsey Map Collection…contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, wall maps, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children’s, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from around 1550 to the present.”
• Digital Black History – “This website is a free, searchable directory for online history projects that can help further Black History research. This ongoing project was created to collect information about these digital Black History projects in order to benefit historians, genealogists, and family historians who are researching the lives of Black individuals and families.”
• Europeana – “Europeana provides cultural heritage enthusiasts, professionals, teachers, and researchers with digital access to European cultural heritage material.”
• FamilySearch – “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides FamilySearch free of charge to everyone, regardless of tradition, culture, or religious affiliation. FamilySearch resources help millions of people around the world discover their heritage and connect with family members.”
• FindMyPast
• Fold3 – “Fold3 features premier collections of original military records. These records include the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served in the military. Many of the records come from the U.S. National archives, The National Archives of the U.K., and other international records.”
• Geneanet
• Immigrant Ancestors Project – “The Immigrant Ancestors Project…uses emigration registers to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries, which is not found in the port registers and naturalization documents in the destination countries.”
• Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild – “20,000+ Passenger Manifests in 21 Volumes plus numerous other passengers listed in Special Projects.”
• Internet Archive
• Library of Congress
  • General Maps – “This category includes maps that typically portray the physical environment and a variety of cultural elements for a geographic area at a particular point in time. The maps in this category show a geographic area larger than a city or town and do not display a subject that is part of one of the thematic categories.”
  • Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection – “This collection is a rich source of historical images of the Middle East. The majority of the images depict Palestine (present day Israel and the West Bank) from 1898 to 1946.”
• MyHeritage
• Newspapers.com – “Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 690 million+ pages of historical newspapers from 21,800+ newspapers from around the United States and beyond. Newspapers provide a unique view of the past and can help us understand and connect with the people, events and attitudes of an earlier time.”
• Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center (Map) Digital Collections – “The Digital Collection includes more than 10,000 digitized maps that are global in scope, dating from the 15th century to the present, with an emphasis on maps and atlases from the New England region, American Revolutionary War period, nautical charts, and world urban centers. Not to be missed is the section on georeferencing, where you can overlay historic maps on modern-day maps.”
• Old Maps Online – “OldMapsOnline.org indexes over 400.000 maps.”
• Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Collection
• The University of Chicago Map Collection – This collection is “one of the largest university map libraries in North America. Its 470,000 maps, 10,000 air photos, 2,000 books, and hundreds of gigabytes of spatial data constitute a rich source of information for scholars and other users.”
• World War II unit histories & officers – “This website aims to give a full spectrum of data on World War II fighting units, including details on organization, commanders, and literature. All units from different countries can be included in due time.”
• Yale University Library Digital Collections