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Fairfax Genealogical Society
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Fairfax County and Vicinity
(Click on Image for View):
Map by FxGS member Paul Johnson
Click here for a printable two page guide to Fairfax County genealogical resources. Note that the Guide is formatted as a tri-fold.
The Virginia Room of The Fairfax County Public Library is a major regional center for Fairfax County and Virginia Historical and Genealogical resources. It is located on the second floor of The City of Fairfax Regional Library in Fairfax City. The Virginia Room has recently purchased the compiled Confederate service records microfilm for all southern states. As of 20 December 2005 VA, NC, SC, TN, AL, MS, and LA have been delivered.
The Historic Newspaper Indexes is now available at The Fairfax County Public Library web site. This database includes information on every article from the microfilms of eight historic local newspapers on file in the Virginia Room. This large database contains over 1.2 million citations, going as far back as 1785. It should be useful to historians, genealogists, archeologists and others interested in the history of Northern Virginia.Fairfax County VaGenWeb contains links to many Fairfax County organizations, locations of County records, a list of publications about the County, a list of researchers in the County, and many other genealogical resources.
The official government web site for Fairfax County contains links to many resources of the County.
The Fairfax County History Commission site contains an historical sketch of the County and information on historic places of interest.
The Mount Vernon Genealogical Society is active in the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County. It encourages the affiliation of persons interested in the pursuit of their ancestral heritage and promotes fellowship and cooperation among them.
The Fairfax County Cemetery Preservation Association, Inc. web site is a place for learning about and helping preserve and protect Fairfax County, Virginia’s endangered cemeteries. Check back often to learn about current projects, what volunteers are doing and how you can help.
The Town of Vienna web site is the official site of the Town of Vienna in Fairfax County. Information on Historic Vienna, a non-profit corporation dedicated to preserving Vienna’s heritage can be found by going to the Site Index.
Fairfax County Genealogy queries and discussion groups. Genforum maintains regional forums for genealogical queries and discussion. The one for Fairfax County is http://genforum.genealogy.com/va/fairfax/.
City of Alexandria
The Special Collections division of Alexandria Library, has an extensive collection of genealogy reference materials and materials on Alexandria and Virginia history. The "useful links" on the Special Collections division page includes a directory of libraries and other resources in the area.
Arlington County
The Arlington County VaGenWeb site contains links to many resources in that county and the surrounding area.
The ROOTS Users Group of Arlington, Virginia (RUG) is open to anyone interested in genealogical computing and treats a variety of genealogical software programs. Meetings are held on the second Saturday of each month.
The Lee Center Genealogy Group, 5722 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207, meets from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. the 4th Wednesday of every month. Everyone is welcome. The Group encourages individual family research, documentation, and recording through interaction with group members, demonstrations, and visits to local sites. For information, please call (703) 228-0550.
Loudoun County
Thomas Balch Local History and Genealogy Library of the Town of Leesburg. The collection of this library focuses on Loudon County History, Regional History, Virginia History, and Family History. Included in the collection are microfilms of Loudon County newspapers dating from 1800, obituary indexes from 1817-1841 and 1858-1898, the collection of the Loudon County Historical Society, and a collection of genealogies and other family information with emphasis on Loudoun County families. Deeds and Wills, Cemetery Records, Marriage Record, and Tax Rolls are also included in the collection. Located at 208 West Market Street. For further information visit the web site of the Thomas Balch Library, or call 703-737-7195.
Prince William County
Prince William County VaGenWeb has a forum for posting queries and surnames.
RELIC (Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center for Genealogy and Local History)
District of Columbia
District of Columbia GenWeb is the District of Columbia site for USGenWeb. This site has links to many resources in the District.
See also Metropolitan Area of Washington DC below.
The National Archives and Record Administration - a national asset just a Metro ride away from Fairfax County. Check their genealogy page for detailed guidance to their services, regional facilities around the nation, workshops, and guides to web resources.
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution maintains one of the largest genealogical libraries in the world in the District.
Montgomery County, MD
Prince George's County, MD
See also District of Columbia above.
The National Capital Area Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists maintains a list of members with their credentials and research specialties.
The Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society (founded in 1982) mission is to stimulate and facilitate research on Germanic genealogy and heritage in the mid-Atlantic region and to promote genealogical research of Germanic ancestors who settled in the Mid-Atlantic Region in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The MAGS is holding a Spring conference in Bowie, MD on Saturday, 24 March 2007: "Overcoming Obstacles to German Research". See their web site at the foregoing link for details.
VaGenWeb is the Virginia site for USGenWeb. This site has links to almost all counties in the State as well as other State resources.
The Virginia Genealogical Society
The Virginia Historical Society
The NVAH Directory of Northern Virginia History Organizations, January 1997, is published by The Northern Virginia Association for History, Inc., P.O. Box 1366, Fairfax, VA 22030.
The Shenandoah Valley Genealogical Society presents monthly programming at the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, Handley Regional Library, 100 E. Piccadilly Street in Winchester, on genealogical and historical research. The programs are free and open to the public.
Heritage Books in Westminster, Maryland specializes in genealogy reference materials.
Different web search engines use different approaches and give different results. Don't be satisfied if your first search with your default browser doesn't find what you are looking for. If you are not sure exactly what you are looking for (and who isn't?) be sure to try several.
A powerful combination of search engines for the most obscure data: is
www.alltheweb.com and www.google.com
Both use image capture not meta file indexing so they can provide long-lost data from dead sites as well as connect to about anything on any topic.
The National Archives and Record Administration is a national asset just a Metro ride away from Fairfax County. Check their genealogy page for detailed guidance to their services, regional facilities around the nation, workshops, and guides to web resources. Check out the Archive Research Catalog, their on line database of selected holdings.
The USGenWeb project is a non-commercial project committed to providing Internet web sites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States.
Comprehensive indexes of genealogy sites:Several web sites facilitate the location and contact of researchers with whom it might be useful to share information. Here are two of them:
Rootsweb is the home of Rootsweb Surname List, containing over 782,000 surname entries.
Genforum maintains many forums for genealogical queries and discussion including forums for specific surnames, geographic regions, and general topics.
Christine's Genealogy Website has many links to African-American websites and resources. Check the contents page for regional listings, including Virginia and Washington DC.
KBYU, affiliated with Brigham Young University, maintains a list of genealogical resources and a set of printable blank forms at it's web site - click the "Ancestors" button.
FxGS is a member of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. FGS provides a variety of products and services to aid genealogical societies and marshals the resources of its member organizations. Their web site describes many of these products and activities. The Federation conducts annual national conferences. Information can be found on the FGS web site. You can subscribe to their magazine online at: http://www.fgs.org/forum/ .
FxGS also belongs to the National Genealogical Society The National Genealogical Society is a service organization with over 17,000 members including individuals, families, genealogical societies, family associations, libraries, and other related institutions. A user has alerted us to an apparent problem with the NGS web site and so our link to it has been deleted until we find that the problem has been solved.
The National Institute on Genealogical Research, an independent, private, non-profit corporation. has been a leader in the field of genealogical education for more than 45 years. The NIGR program takes an in-depth look at federal records of genealogical value located primarily in the Washington, D.C. area.
A blog of potential interest to genealogy researchers is at: DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog
Social Security Death Index
The Social Security Death Index can be searched at Rootsweb.
Commercial genealogical software programs are revised so frequently that comparisons have a short shelf like. When looking for a particular capability or when choosing among alternative software suites be sure the descriptions and evaluations used are up-to-date.
George Archer, author of Archer's Directories of Genealogical Software and Utilities, has prepared a Guide to Online Searching for Genealogical Software.