WorldVitalRecords.com is a wonderful resource for finding the records most vital to your genealogy search. This site has a well-organized interface that places an emphasis on finding information narrowed down by specific locations. This will work particularly well for anyone who knows their family lived in a part of Ireland for generations, for example, but does not know much beyond that.
The emphasis on place gives a nice bit of context as you get to know your ancestors and can help highlight additional records you might not have thought to search for in the first place. When you click on a specific state, for instance, you are given a list of records available for that state. Every state's collection is different. If you go looking for a birth or death record you may notice a historical book that mentions your relative too, which can offer information about much more than just important dates.
This site uses avant-garde technology called Geo-coding. This is a strategy to apply Web 2.0 functionality to genealogy search. WorldVitalRecords.com is not the first to use this technology, but it is the first to apply it to every database on the site. Geo-coding identifies the latitude and longitude of a geographical location. The location is then displayed on an interactive map that has zooming and planning features. The main purpose of this technology is to see the geographic location in comparison to surrounding areas. It also follows migrations over time. This can be handy in analyzing the communities of your distant family members.
Here are some other unique features found on WorldVitalRecords.com:
- Records with over 1 billion names
- Affordable subscription
- Special collections
- Genealogy news
- Newsletter
WorldVitalRecords offers records of over 1 billion names from vital records, census records, court records, directory lists, family histories, family trees, immigration records, military records, newspapers and reference materials.
These records are all updated regularly, with featured collections and databases of the month on the home page.
We like that WorldVitalRecords has a hefty yearbooks collection – not something you see on every site. The more than 8,000 high school, college and military yearbooks can offer a priceless glimpse into your relative's early life.
The relatively new card catalogs page helps users zero in on the information they want by filtering records by record type, year range, county and state. Another helpful search feature is the "See Neighbors" link, which will list the people who died in the same zip code and year as the person you are seeking.
There is a nice chunk of Canadian family history information accessible on this site in the form of the 1871 Census. The database contains more than 400,000 records. That will come in very handy for many researchers.
WorldVitalRecords.com offers two different types of membership options: either the U.S. or World collections. The U.S. collection offers unlimited access to all U.S. record collections. The world collection membership offers all of the benefits of the U.S. collection plus unlimited access to international records well as 1.2 billion worldwide ancestral names.
WorldVitalRecords.com also allows you to find records by country. It’s as simple as choosing a country and searching from all the collections available in the database for that country.
Members of WorldVitalRecords.com receive a monthly genealogy newsletter, which offers some good information. There is not much beyond that in the way of extras for genealogy buffs. This site is all business, emphasizing information searches and not much else. That will be just fine with a lot of users.
WorldVitalRecords.com has excellent genealogy search options that allow you to search the site in many different ways. You have the ability to browse its databases by record type, place, and by database title. Each individual database can also be searched by going to the specific database and using the search engine found on the database homepage.
The search engine can be found on the homepage of WorldVitalRecords.com, under the search link on the top blue tool bar.
This site has a complete FAQs page, phone and email support. When we called we waited on hold for about 3 minutes before speaking to a knowledgeable customer service representative. WorldVitalRecords.com can also be reached via e-mail. We immediately received an automated response with standard information. The actual reply came within 24 hours after sending the original message.
WorldVitalRecords.com is an up and coming figure in online genealogy search sites, but it does not offer a built in family tree maker. This means that users will have to use WorldVitalRecords.com in conjunction FamilyLink.com or some other tree building software. Nonetheless, this site is a great deal for the price.
