World Genealogy Web Sites

In my senior adult education class today, two of the students asked about research in Russia, Turkey, the island of Rhodes and the former Belgian Congo. I had several suggestions for them:

* The http://www.worldgenweb.org/ site
* Message boards on Rootsweb and Genforum for the specific countries
* Mailing lists on Rootsweb for the specific countries
* Use a search engine to find "turkey genealogy" or the equivalent.

The http://www.worldgenweb.org/ site now has subdivisions for:

* AfricaGenWeb
* AsiaGenWeb
* BritishIslesGenWeb
* CaribbeanGenWeb
* CenEuroGenWeb

* EastEuropeGenWeb
* MediterraneanGenWeb
* MiddleEastGenWeb
* NorthAmericaGenWeb
* PacificGenWeb
* SouthAmericanGenWeb

Each sub-division has the list of countries, and the page for each country lists resources and links for that country.

I was able to show that the Russia-General message board has over 8,700 messages to date. We searched for the surname without success. But we found some of the surname on the appropriate surname board.

For Turkey, there wasn't much on the WorldGenWeb page except for a map and a short history. There was a fascinating "Genealogy of Nations" chart on the Middle East page that shows the descendants of Noah (www.genealogynation.com/middle-east/):



If anyone has suggestions for other resources for these countries, I will be happy to pass them on to my students. We also visited and talked a bit about the www.JewishGen.org site and the www.FEEFHS.org site. I recommended that the students try to find knowledgeable and helpful researchers who know more about these countries than I do!