Research Resources

Life is easier when you have an list of links to the sources you use most often, or so says Thomas MacEntee. This is mine. I had it started before I watched his 2011 webinar. One of these I’ll come back and do some polishing. Now, I’m moving it back offline.

Quick Links

• Geni
• FamilySearch
• FamilySearch Site Map
• Wikitree

Calendar

• Är det måndag morgon?
• Medieval Calendar Calculator

DNA Tools

• Genetic Affairs. Automates retrieval of new genetic matches.
• Shared cM Project 3.0 tool. Calculates probable relationships from amount of shared DNA.

Education

• BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy.
• BYU Family History Portal.

Handwriting

• How to Read Medieval Handwriting (Paleography).
• Gothic Handwriting Tool. Type in a word to see how it would look in Gothic handwriting.

Heraldry

• American Heraldry Society.
• eHerold: Wappenliste.
• Heraldry.
• Heralds’ Visitations and the College of Arms.
• International Association of Amateur Heralds.
• U.S. Heraldic Registry.

Languages

• Abbreviations Found in Genealogical Records, from Latin and English, alphabetically arranged.
• Anglo-Norman Dictionary, now available online.
• Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
• Latin Genealogical Word List, from Familysearch.org
• Latin Language and Script: Resources for the Genealogist, from Ancestry.com
• Latin Words for Genealogists, a list of Latin words commonly found in genealogical research, alphabetically arranged.
• Middle English Dictionary, now available online.

Link Collections

• British Library: TimeLines. Portal to articles and collection items. British Library.
• Guide to Online Primary Sources: Medieval. UC San Diego.
• Digital Scriptorium. Image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. UC Berkeley.
• Genealogy Research Toolbox. A sample online links database from Thomas MacEntee.
• Medieval source material on the internet.
• Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Collection of medieval primary and secondary sources, including maps. Fordham University.
• The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies. University of Georgetown.
• Luminarium, Gateway site for early English literature and scholarship.
• Pre-Christian Religions of the North: Sources. Collection of academic sources.

Medieval Genealogies

• Stewart Baldwin, Early Swedish Kings (1999).
• Stewart Baldwin, Gorm of Denmark and his immediate predecessors (2001).
• Stewart Baldwin, The Kings of the Isle of Man (1999).
• Stewart Baldwin, Kings of the Danes prior to 887 (1996).
• Stewart Baldwin, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth ancestor table (1998).
• Peter C. Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000 (1993).
• Bernard Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (1866). Use with caution.
• Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands (MedLands). Genealogies of European royal and noble families. This is the database preferred by Geni.com’s medieval curators.
• Todd A. Farmerie and Stewart Baldwin, The Henry Project. Ancestors of Henry II of England.
• Todd A. Farmerie, Robert de Torigny and the family of Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy (1996).
• Manfred Heibel, Dynasties. Medieval German dynasties.
• Manfred Heibel, Genealogie Mittelalter. Medieval genealogy in the German Reich until the end of the Staufens.
• Eduard Hlawitschka, Franken, Alemannen, Bayern und Burgunder in Oberitalien, 774-962 (1960)
• Miroslav Marek, Genealogy.eu. Genealogies of European royal and noble families.
• Raymond W. Phair, Who were the parents of Gilbert de Gant? (1999).
• Prof. Herbert Stoyan, Stoyan. Database at the University of Erlangen. An old standby, but has quirky navigation and is often off-line.
• Christian Settipani, Les ancêtres de Charlemagne.
• Christian Settipani, Addenda to Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (1990).
• Zoltán Szombathy, Genealogy in Medieval Muslim Societies (2002). Requires JSTOR membership.
• Paul Theroff, Online Gotha. Genealogies of European royal and noble families.
• Paul Theroff, Royal Genealogy. Descendants of Henry VII, Descendants of James I, Matrilineal Descents, etc.
• Diana B. Tyson, A Medieval Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock (2004).
• Leo van de Pas, Genealogics. Research collection.
• François Velde, French Royal Genealogy.
• —, soc.genealogy.medieval. Forum for discussions of medieval genealogy.

Medieval Databases

• British History Online (BHO). Includes the Victoria County Histories.
• Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT). Irish literary and historic texts.
• Celtic Literature Collective. Many broken links but still a great collection.
• Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae (CGH).
• David Nash Ford’s Early British Kingdoms.
• Sir Archibald C. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters Prior to A.D. 1153 (1905).
• English Muster Roll Database 1369-1453.
• Germanic Mythology: Texts, Translations, Scholarship.
• Inquisitions Post Mortem, at British History Online.
• Internet Sacred Texts Archive. Database of “sacred” and folkloric texts, including saga material.
• The Legend of King Arthur. Database of people named in the Arthurian material.

Medieval Documents

• The Avalon Project. Medieval Documents at Yale University.
• Diplomata Karolinorum. Carolingian charters.
• Early Manuscripts at Oxford University. A collection of some of the manuscripts held in Oxford libraries.
• EuroDocs. European historical documents; this includes transcriptions, facsimiles, and translations.
• European History Primary Sources. Digital sources from the European University Institute.
• Monumenta Germaniae Historica (dMGH).
• Northvegr. Collection of Norse and Anglo-Saxon sagas and chronicles.
• Roskilde Chronicle. Danish medieval history.
• Sources of the history of Denmark 789-1450. Collection of letters and from the medieval period.
• Saxo Grammaticus. Medieval Danish historian.

Names

• What is onomastics?
• Scottish Names Resources, a collection of pages for deciphering Scottish naming conventions form several sources, including Gaelic, Norman, Pictish, and Norse, along with associated cultures.
• Quick and Easy Gaelic Names, explaining both Irish and Scottish naming conventions.
• Medieval German Names, including High German, Middle German, and Frankish.
• Medieval Islamic Names, including Arabic, Turkish, and Persian.
• Medieval Names from India, China, and Japan.
• Indexing of Welsh Personal Names, useful for understanding medieval Welsh naming conventions.

Prosopography

Prosopography is an academic field closely allied to genealogy. It studies the lives of individual people as part of a group by gathering all original source material about their lives. Prosopographical databases are useful to genealogists because they provide precise dates and forms of names.

• What is prosopography?
• People of Medieval Scotland 1093-1314 (PoMS), database of people named in Scotland primary sources
• People of Northern England 1216-1286 (PoNE), database of people named in English primary sources.
• Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE), database of people named in Anglo-Saxon charters and chronicles.
• Prosopograhy of the Byzantine World (PBW), database of people named in Byzantine primary sources.

Style Guides

• Evidence Explained: Sample QuickCheck Models.
• Purdue: APA Style.
• Purdue: Chicago Manual of Style.
• Purdue: MLA Style.

Miscellaneous

• Nathaniel L. Taylor, Canon Law and Consanguinity. Drawn from Constance B. Bouchard’s article, “Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries”.
• BYU Family History Tech Lab.
• Early Medieval Charters: A Guide For Students. From The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe.

My Link Collections

• Genealogy playlist, at YouTube.
• Genetics playlist, at YouTube.
• History playlist, at YouTube.
• My projects at Geni.com.