GenealogyBank.com is an offering of NewsBank Inc, which has been providing information to researchers in education, the military and the government. It now offers extensive genealogical material and exclusive content to researchers to access at home.

Modern and historical resources include obituaries, historic newspapers, military records, social security records and much more. Both historical and modern collections are updated frequently; the Social Security Index is the only SSDI site updated weekly.

Components include:

Historical Newspapers 1690-1977: more than 112.3 million articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items published in more than 500,000 issues of more than 2,400 historical U.S. newspapers. Updates are made monthly.

Historical Books 1801-1900: Find the complete text of more than 11,700 books, pamphlets and printed items - all published in the US before 1900 - including genealogies, biographies, funeral sermons, local histories, cards, charts and more. Also updated monthly.

Historical Documents 1789-1980: Readers can locate military records, casualty lists, Revolutionary and Civil War pension requests, widow's claims, orphan petitions, land grants and much more including all of the American State Papers (1789-1838) and all genealogical content selected from the U.S. Serial Set (1817-1980), from more than 136,000 reports, lists and documents. The site is now digitizing documents for January 1938 and there are monthly updates.

America's Obituaries 1977-current: These records offer researchers essential information such as names, dates, places of birth, death, marriage and family information. The collection includes more than 26.9 million obituaries for the 20th-21st centuries, and includes obituaries from more than 1,000 US newspapers. Content is added daily.

Social Security Death Index 1937-to-current: Many online sites have the SSDI, but only GenealogyBank's database of more than 81.3 million death records is updated each week.

During February, the total of documents reached 220,763,095; new newspaper content was added from 24 states, and 4.1 million records and documents were recently added.

The site offers one of the best trial subscriptions - only $9.95 for a 30-day trial.

I look forward to reading your comments and learning if readers have found documents of interest for their families.

Find My Past is a family history and genealogy website based in London, England, with more than 550 million family history records recently announced its plans to bring UK Censuses 1841-1901 online at WorldVitalRecords.com (a service of FamilyLink.com, Inc.).

While the UK site focuses on those geographical records, many American researchers should look at these records as well. While many UK immigrants resettled in the US, the UK was also a transit point for immigrants from Europe and points farther east.

Some families and individuals stayed for a few generations or just a few years before moving on to North America. It is always worth searching new record collections to see what mysteries of history might be discovered.

Already added to the site's World Collection of Records are the 1861, 1881 and 1891 censuses.

Find My Past also offers access to the outbound Passenger Lists which now run from 1890-1960. There are now 24 million passengers recorded in this time period.

The company worked with the UK's National Archives and some 125 people worked for more than a year to scan in 1.1 million individual pages.

The outbound passenger lists cover many destinations - not only to the US. Although all seven decades of the passenger lists are free to search, obtaining images and transcripts requires a subscription - sometimes there are good deals, so check the FindMyPast site.

I look forward to hearing from readers who have located family records at the site.

Do you have family in New Jersey? Or did your ancestors live there? The Courier-Post newspaper has placed online - with free access - links to many useful databases for family historians and genealogists. You may just find information on your "missing" links.

New Jersey, 1846

The nation's largest death registry is the Social Security Administration's Death Master File, known by its acronym of SSDI, is an index of more than 80 million names that has helped countless families trace their roots back to the 19th century. It is is now available on DataUniverse, a free public records search offered by the Courier-Post newspaper in New Jersey.

The index is searchable by name, last residence, year of death or birth, and Social Security number.

To access the data, click the Courier-Post Online.

Although updated frequently and holds deaths from 1937, it does not contain everyone who died since then, such as those who did not have a Social Security number, those whose deaths were never reported to the Federal government, and other reasons. The majority are people who died from the 1960s onward when records were computerized.

Not in the database is President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the creator of Social Security, is not because he died in 1945. But Harry S. Truman, Ronald W. Reagan and even Elvis Presley are in the searchable files.

There is a link to order (for a fee) the original social security application documents which can provide many genealogical facts, including address at application, place of work, parents' names, birthdate and birthplace.

The newspaper's collection also offers free access to millions of government records, including New Jersey convicted criminals (if you're looking for your family's black sheep!), public school performance reports, public employee salaries and overtime, property sales and ownership (1999-2006), and links to medical and consumer information on the Web.

Other information provides information on teachers, police, firefighters, retirees, university employees, college entrance scores, campaign contributions and more. Depending on the records, data is searchable by name, address, town or other parameters.

It is definitely worth a look, and it is free.

I look forward to hearing your comments and your experiences using this database.