Fifteen years ago, the owner of the small ISP I used for creaky dial-up 'Net access opined to me that the development of the then toddler 'Net was being driven by genealogists and pornographers, as they had the money and desire ;-) to pay for the images they wanted.
And the 'Net has grown considerably since then.....
I expect most of us have used the big web sites that specialize in genealogy, like Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org and Heritagequest, in our never-ending search for dead relatives.
But what about other sources, less well known? I'll share a few I've found below, and would love to see others posted in the comments. Mine are focused on my areas of interest (Scotland and New England), so glad to see resources for other areas ;-)
Two sites I love are regional ~ major for their regions, but not on the scale of the really big sites.
New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS): records (available to members ~ and so worth it if your family passed through NewEngland, especially Massachusetts) focused on New England.
Scotlandspeople: census returns and vital records for Scotland. Pay per search result page or certificate; no subscriptions :-(
A few others that have been really helpful:
TalkingScot forum ~ as is likely obvious from the name, focused on Scotland. But if you have a brick wall in Scotland, this is the place to ask!
Italian Genealogical Group. Now, I have absoltuely no Italian ancestry that I've found.... but they have indexed lots of vital records from New York City. Some of these may now be on other sites, but I like their plain, simple interface.
Guild of One-Name Studies. Concentrated on less common British family names, you might hit a treasure trove of data if one of your names is being studied.
National Archives of Ireland, with the 1901/1911 census returns
Maps..... love them ;-)
And have solved a few brick walls partly because I've found a good map of a location.
Old Maps ~ covering the UK.
Maps of Scotland ~ over 20,000 images
And don't forget blogs....
Michael John Neill's Genealogy Tip of the Day is a nice addiion to an RSS reader ;-) Among other things, he also runs a Transcriber blog that challenges people's skill at reading old handwriting. I also subscribe to his Casefile Clues newsletter ~ one of the best methodology resources around; seems to be fairly mid-west heavy as that's where his reseach is focused.
Note: I have an errand to run this a.m., so may not be back quite yet when this posts. If I'm not, I'll reply as soon as I do get home ;-)