"I've gotten more genealogy done in one year on Prodigy than I did in 20 years on my own!” my mother exclaimed some 15 years ago. This quote, from a genealogy veteran, shows how technology has changed even this popular hobby. The mind-boggling mass of data needed to trace one’s family tree has finally found a knife to whittle it down to size: the computer.

The early editions of this book assumed you knew how to do genealogy but not how to use the Internet. Since that time, commercial online services and the Internet have added, expanded, revised, and changed what they offer, as well as how and when they offer it. From having to use a dial-up connection over a modem in 1992 to cable and satellite connections to today’s iPhone, we’ve come a long way. In fact, it has become almost impossible to escape the Internet. We’ve all had a chance to surf on the Net without a life jacket. Therefore, the current iteration assumes you know most Internet technologies and programs, and that you want to know how to use them to do your genealogy.

The potential for finding clues, data, and other researchers looking for your same family names has increased exponentially since the last edition of this book was published. Since 2002, push technology, streaming video, blogs, podcasts, and indexed document scans have radically changed what can be found on the Internet and how we search for it. If you feel you need formal instruction, online courses, from basic self-paced text to college-level instruction, the Internet can now make that happen.