Genealogy Forums

Genealogy forums can be an aid when tracing your ancestry. In large families, it is not unheard of for there to be several people researching the same line. Most genealogists are eager to share their information, which can greatly reduce the amount of time and effort you need to find your ancestors.

Most genealogy forums offer message boards for locations and surnames. Be sure to check for variations on the surname and in surrounding locations. Surnames have a tendency to change over the years. Letters were dropped or the spelling may have changed. Locations may have changed names over the years as well. It is not unusual to find family members in the next county over in the next census. This doesn't necessary mean that they moved, but rather that the county lines changed. Large counties were often broken into smaller ones as the state grew.

This is true of countries as well. Those tracing ancestors that lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire may find that the area they lived is now Austria, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslavakia, Yugoslavia or one of the other countries that now exist.

Some forums I frequent are:
Ancestry Message Boards
GenForum
MyHeritage Genealogy Forums