Washington Links:
The Washington State Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 1422
Olympia, WA 98507
(360) 352-0595
The Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 1952
Tacoma, WA 98401
(206) 572-6650
The Seattle Genealogical Society
6200 Sand Point Way N.E.
Seattle, WA 98115
(206) 522-8658
Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites for Washington State is an excellent, well-organized collection of valuable links for Washington researchers. Be sure to check out the other sites on her page, as well!
Another comprehensive listing of Washington resources is ROOTS-L's United States Resources: Washington.
A list of vital records available at the state's office of vital records, and for each county can be found at Washington Vital Records.
The Washington State Department of Health has instructions for ordering birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates.
Washington State Digital Archives: a major effort coordinated by the Washington State Library and Washington Secretary of State's office to digitize records from Washington Territory and State. Available records include censuses, county and local histories, maps, marriage records, naturalization records, and many other resources. All records are searchable, and many records (particularly censuses) are linked to images of the source documents.
The WA Biographies Project is now online! This project is part of the US Bios Project, aimed at transcribing biographies of Washington residents from sources no longer copyrighted.
HistoryLink.org, "the online encyclopedia of Washington state history" is chock-full of interesting and well-researched articles on many events in Washington history. Also provides timelines of major events and biographies of state pioneers, movers and shakers.
The Seattle Times maintains obituaries for one year.
The Political Graveyard has an interesting listing of political figures buried in the state of Washington.
Online Census Washington lists free census records available online for Washington state, as well as other helpful resources.
The Books We Own Project has a listing of lookup volunteers for Washington-state resources.
General Links:
Rootsweb Genealogical Data Cooperative is a valuable source for genealogists, including the complete ROOTS-L archives, the Roots Surname Location lists, hundreds of surname- and geographic-interest mailing lists, as well as a growing collection of searchable databases. Some highlights of the Rootsweb website includes:
Databases and Search Engines - a meta-list of all search engines and databases available online at Rootsweb.WorldConnect Project - a way for researchers to share their Gedcoms online.
U.S. GenWeb Archives - an incredible volunteer effort to make public-domain documents available free of charge on-line. Check out the states, and perhaps make a contribution of your own!
Search the 1880 US Census, as well as the 1881 British Census, 1881 Canadian Census and other records at FamilySearch (part of the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
FamilySearch.org, maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has many freely-available records for both the US and internationally, including marriages, deaths, census and military records. (Although most resources are freely available, an account is needed to access some records.)
All known census records published on the web can be found at Census Online. A similar concept is located at Census Finder.
Three freely-accessibe databases of burial records: American Cemetery Records online, Find-A-Grave, and Nationwide Gravesite Locator (to locate burial locations of military veterans).
The WPA Life Histories site has full texts of biographies and interviews conducted as part of the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1940. Even if you don't find your own relative, the biographies offer fascinating insights into life in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The National Archives has a site with on-line catalogs of genealogical resources, including census and immigration records, available from the Archives.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers - massive effort by the Library of Congress to digitize historic newspapers, including papers from Washington state.
The USGS Geographic Name Server allows you to search for specific features (such as all populated places within Lewis County, WA), provides a list of results, and displays a map of specific selections.
Need help with Canadian place names? Then check the Canada Gazetteer.
Among FamilySearch's many databases is the U.S. Social Security Index. Information on ordering copies of Social Security applications of deceased individuals can be found at the government's SSA site.
Tombstone Birthday Calculator - allows you to calculate the date of birth when you know the date of death, and age at death (in years, months and days).