How to Add New Genealogy Search Sites to Family Tree Maker

Family Tree Maker software is a popular program for building and maintaining family trees. It contains a lot of powerful features including it's search capability.   Family Tree Maker (FTM) will let you search the internet for records and other information without leaving the program.

By default, FTM will search Ancestry.com, RootsWeb General Search and Genealogy.com. But the cool thing is that you can add more genealogy sites for FTM to search (like FamilySearch.org).

This is a really nice feature as it allows you to search all of your favorite sites while working within Family Tree Maker.  For step by step instructions on how to add new genealogy search sites to Family Tree Maker, click here.

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Searching for Obituaries

Searching for obituaries can be challenging and there are several ways to go about it.  The first step is to search the local newspaper of where the person died.  Of course, if you live in another state, this can be difficult.

One way around this is to search the newspaper's web site for old obituaries. Some states have an online newspaper website where they are have links to old newspapers from around the state.  A search in Google will help determine if the state your relative died in has a newspaper project site. 

Another option is to check the genealogical society in that state.  Many states have a genealogy web site or office that have old newspapers on microfilm.  In Arizona, Sharlot Hall has every newspaper of the Daily Courier ever published on film.  This makes it very easy to go back and find an obituary.  Several states have similar sources.

Google can be another good source for searching obituaries.  I often search a person's name in Google looking for their obituary.  For example, I will go to Google and search, "John Smith Obit" and see if anything comes up.  Sometimes I will vary the search words (John Smith + obit or Mrs John Smith + obit). When the plus sign is used in a Google query, it tells Google to search the main word (e.g., John Smith) and to look for the word "obituary" to in reference to John Smith.

You can check out more Google Search Tips by clicking the links below:

• Google Insights for Search
• Google Advanced Search
• Google Search Tips

Google has also compiled a list of links related directly to obituary searches.  The idea is to make it easier for you to find obituary resources for you to search.

Another great source for searching obituaries is Newspaper Archive.  This web site is the largest historical newspaper database online and contains nearly 100 million newspaper pages from 1759 to present. Every newspaper in the archive is fully searchable by keyword and date, making it easy to quickly explore historical content, discover family roots, and share with friends.

And last but not least, we've compiled our own list of links to obituary sources. This list links to online newspaper and other sources to help you search for obituaries.

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