By making a simple phone call or sending e-mail, you can establish contact with distant or "lost" relatives, perhaps opening a dialog that will result in locating valuable data. You never know where you will obtain that all-important fact you've been seeking. A missing family Bible may be in the hands of a distant cousin with whom no one has been in communication in many years. One contact with the current owner may get you copies of the handwritten pages you've needed to corroborate hearsay evidence and secondary sources.

In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, I want to discuss some Web-based tools to help you locate and make contact with people, both by telephone and by e-mail.

Two Types of Available Tools
We all know that the Internet is the repository for vast amounts of information. We know, too, that if we know what tools are available and how to use them, we can gather information quickly and inexpensively. There are two major types of resources available for locating people through the Internet. Let's define them because they can be very important for family historians and researchers.

Online Telephone Directories - When the government decreed some years ago that telephone directories are a matter of public record, many companies got into the business of transcribing directories for the purpose of selling the information. Unless you have paid for an unlisted and unpublished telephone number for yourself or your business, your number is fair game. From a marketing perspective, the massive compendia of consumer telephone information immediately became invaluable marketing and selling tools. The data was compiled into databases and/or onto CD-ROMs.

Other companies, such as Internet-based directories (Yahoo! and Excite) and search engines (like AltaVista and Hotbot) have made such telephone directories for individuals who own Web sites to provide these lookup facilities with special add-on features to draw more users to their Web sites. All of these facilities are free for your use because advertisers pay to get their products and services on the directories', search engines', and other commercial Web sites' pages.

Please note again that to prevent your number from being captured and published in one of these Web-based directories, your telephone number must be classified by your telephone service providers—local and long distance—as both unlisted AND unpublished.

E-mail Directories - Perhaps the most ubiquitous feature of the Internet is electronic mail. E-mail provides the fastest and least expensive means of written communication today. It allows you to communicate with people all over the word—as individuals, as members of Internet-based mailing lists (listservs), and as members of group distribution lists. You can quickly send e-mail and attach word processing files, spreadsheets, graphics, sounds and our favorite, GEDCOM files chock-full of our family research data. The best news is that there are many companies on the Internet providing free e-mail accounts.

E-mail has become the predominant form of communication between private individuals, coworkers exchanging work-related information, consumers, businesses and others. Commercial enterprises perceived the need early on for directories of e-mail addresses, and there are many Web sites vying to provide these lookup facilities to you, the user, for free. Again, the cost of the service is borne by advertisers paying to place their ads on the Web pages.

No longer is it necessary to purchase CD-ROMs or subscribe to pay databases with these directories. You can access the data on Web pages. You just need to know where to look for the very best of the services, and you need to invest a little time learning how to use the facilities.

What Are Some of These Resources?
There are many places on the Web to find these directory sites, and it is impossible to list all of them here. However, let me point you to some of the better sites. Among the search facilities I use are the following.

AnyWho (http://www.anywho.com/) is a product of AT&T Labs and is a sophisticated telephone number database. It allows you to look for people's numbers using simple searches or employing Boolean search options (Same As, Begins With, Sounds Like). Another great feature that you'll often find handy is the Reverse Lookup. If you've jotted a number down on a scrap of paper and don't recall the name associated with it, use Reverse Lookup to find the name associated with the number.

Excite People Finder (http://www.excite.com/reference/people_finder/ is another combined telephone number/e-mail search facility which uses the AnyWho engine as its core. If you use the "Search AT&T White Pages" facility and it's Boolean search options (Same As, Begins With, Sounds Like), you will quickly locate listings. If you see your own listing is incorrect, you can also update it online, submit a change, and call their 800 number to immediately confirm the change. (When I did this on my own listing, the change was immediately applied to the database and was there as quickly as I could resubmit the inquiry. Impressive!) Reverse Lookup is here too.

Yahoo! People Search http://people.yahoo.com/) is part of Yahoo!, the venerable Web directory. It provides searches for telephone number or e-mail address on a single screen. There are cross-references between e-mail and telephone number lists, as well as links to a white pages directory, maps, local businesses and other resources.

WhoWhere, Inc., (http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/wwphone/phone.html) is a facility presented by the Lycos Network. Lycos is one of the long-standing Web directories, and their lookup facility is well-designed. Once you've located a name and address, like Yahoo!, you can obtain a map, e-mail it to a friend, and plot driving directions.

Switchboard (http://www.switchboard.com/) provides a people search facility, which will help you locate the person, their address and telephone number, maps of the area and lists of nearby businesses and attractions. Their business search facility operates in much the same fashion. The e-mail database is not as up-to-date as others I have used.

As I said, these are just a few of the telephone and e-mail directories that exist. Certainly, if you subscribe to America Online (AOL), CompuServe, Prodigy, the Microsoft Network (MSN), Mindspring, and any other information network or service provider, make a point of searching their own member directories! I have to report that when I finally made the time to search AOL, I found seven of my first cousins there. After many intervening years, we are communicating frequently online and via e-mail and sharing family news and information as we never have before. In addition, we've expanded out e-mail communications to another twenty to twenty-five family members across the continent.

NOTE: Please be aware that most of these telephone and e-mail directories have some significant lag time in updating data. As you can imagine, with millions of telephone numbers in service, the addition of new area codes, changes to numbers, and the volatility of e-mail addressees, it isn't simple for all these databases to be maintained. For instance, one online telephone directory still lists me at a number in Illinois which I terminated over four years ago. And discontinued e-mail addresses I used on the one service provider two years ago and on another three years ago remain in the e-mail databases. (I haven't included these databases, but I must say that the problem is universal to varying degrees.)

Suggestions for Using These Facilities
You're probably asking yourself, "Gee, how can I put these lookup facilities to use in my own research?" Well, here are some suggestions I'd like to make.

• Locate "lost" or missing relatives (interview them, send them materials to review for accuracy, obtain copies of records in their possession, provide copies of materials you have).
• Organize a family reunion and locate relatives' mailing addresses, e-mail addresses and/or telephone numbers in order to announce the reunion and invite them.
• Identify telephone numbers and addresses of persons of the same surname in a specific area (perhaps they are descendants of relatives or ancestors, maybe even living in the "old homeplace").
• Compile an address book of relatives.
• Compile an e-mail distribution list for family communications.
• Create a listserv for communications about a specific family or surname, and identify e-mail addresses of people you might want to advise about its creation.
• Use the business telephone and address listings to locate city offices, libraries, archives, religious institutions, schools, genealogical societies, historical societies, hotels/motels and other organizations and make contact with them in advance of a genealogical research trip. Determine what resources they have, hours of operation, and make appointments to meet with people on-site.
• Use the accompanying maps and/or driving directions to facilities to organize your research trip.
• Add or update your own listings in the directories so people can locate YOU!

These resources can be found on AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy and MSN as well as on the Web. Please invest a little time locating them and learning how to use them. (Don't forget to look for the online help.) You'll organize yourself, you'll locate new human resources, and maybe you'll locate that otherwise elusive piece of information you've sought for so many years.

Happy hunting!

George

The definitive guide to the Genealogy Forum on America Online has been published by Ancestry Incorporated, the leader in genealogical reference publishing. The Genealogy Forum will introduce you to America Online and to each of the types of resources found within the forum. From "how-to" guides for beginners to reference articles for experienced users; from message boards to file libraries; from vast surname resources to informative chats and lectures; from international research guides to extensive ethnic resources; and from sophisticated forum search facilities to the very best resources on the Internet, The Genealogy Forum will teach you how to make the most effective use of this online treasure trove.

The article originally appeared in the Genealogy Forum on America Online. You may send E-mail to alonglines@aol.com. George Morgan would like to hear from you but, because of the volume of E-mail, is unable to personally respond to each letter individually. He also regrets that he cannot assist you with your personal genealogical research.