Any genealogy sites that have records from many countries?

Question

i've begun searching my mother's side of the family, however i am a first generation American, so none of my families roots are from the USA but all these sites only have records from the USA, England, Germany, etc.

does anyone know of any websites/resources that have records from more countries (specifically China, Spain, the Philippines, Portugal, and some middle eastern countries).

Answer 1

The answer is no. People will send you here and there, but in all of the former Spanish lands, only the Catholic Church holds the records that you want, that also includes Portugal. The standard amongst western European monarchies was to rely upon the parish priest to records births, marriages and deaths. That didn't change until the late 1800s nd early 1900s. So after the civil register started being kept, the idea of identity theft popped up and privacy laws were enaced to prevent misuse of the civil registers. In China, the Communist government came along and the're not interested in what they consider "silly genealogy".

So there are very isolated records for Spain, the Philippines and Portugal on the internet...and they're not from recent generations. The LDS has filmed many of the parish records that can help you, but they're not free and you need to know the parish or town that you're researching before you can request the right film. The Philippines has a handful of records on the internet through their archives, but it's limited. China isn't sharing recods. Unless you know someone who is well-placed in a university in China, you won't get anywhere in that research.

Now comes the Middle East. Your hurdle there is that most of it was not "civilized" in the sense of having permanent residences on lands that were registered and there was no such thing as a civil register until after the colonial powers came in...and that's about 120-150 years ago. But now enters our second problem. Surnames weren't introduced until the 1940s. Before that, someone was only known Ra'ed Yusef Ibrahim Ali Muhammed Ibrahim Haji.....Ra'ed son of Yusef, Yusef son of Ibrahim, Ibrahim son of Ali, Ali son of Muhammed, Muhammed son of Ibrahim, Ibrahim son of Haji. A surname like al-Shahidi was probably not introduced until the 1940s. So where do you look for records on people who didn't keep them? Genealogy hasn't got an answer for that. If you know that you have a relative like Ra'ed and you have several generations of his fathers in the man's name, welcome to the extent of genealogy research that you're going to get....especially if they were from Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, UAE, Iraq or if they are from tribes without countries of their own, like Assyrians and Kurds. Iran has refused to open any records to the west. Pakistans records were tied to the British Empire, as were India's records, and they only go back to the colonial period and whether the person had a relationship with the white world. You're going to be able to get records like Immigration records into the US and birth/marriage/death records on recent generations, but that's not on the internet. Those require a trip over there or a family member who is over there, understands what you want, and is willing to go get it for you.

So I know you may get some ideas thrown at you, but I've been at this for more than 25 years and I can speak well to the fact that you'll be researching Catholic Church records and a snippet of colonial records and then you're done until the day you can personally visit China and the Middle East  do the research yourself. It's a reality that the whole world doesn't embrace genealogy and not too many countries that you've listed have even embraced internet archiving of records.

It's not a happy answer, but it is honest and accurate.

Answer 2

UK answer.

This is the only site I know of although unlike ancestry.com this one is completely free to use.

http://www.familysearch.org/

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

My advice is to bookmark this page..

http://www.cyndislist.com/

and

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index...

The beauty of the mailing lists is that you can network with others working the same localities, and gain from what they have found.  On some occasions, you even may bump into persons who actually LIVE in that area. My Poland list (through yahoo) has several regular posters who live there.

However.. one thing that you have to be realistic about.. the fact is that many persons in those areas, have little interest in genealogy, or even the internet, for that matter. The records themselves WILL NOT be online, assuming that they exist in the first place.   To get to the information, you might have to go snail mail.  You also may find that the LDS church has obscure records that they have microfilmed, and you can order the film to search at a local family history center.

Answer 4

Besides the countries you mentioned, ancestry.com has listings in Austria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, India, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Wales. Chances are if you can't find the person you want on their US site, you can on their  UK or Canada, or even German, Swedish, or Italian sites.

www.familysearch.org  has listings from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and everywhere in between--including the Middle East and the countries you want in particular. They even have listings in the ANCIENT COUNTRIES/ REGIONS; ANTARCTICA (or South Pole region); and people born AT SEA. I'm a geography major and have not heard of some of the countries they have (name change or not)--Wallis and Futuna (islands, I assume); Tokelau; San Tome & Principe (islands??); Niue; Republic of Moldova; and Mayotte to name a few.  Also, some of their listings go back to the 10th century and before.