Cyndi's List and Genealogical Research - 2025 Update
April 1, 2025
Beginners Level Article
Cyndi’s List and Genealogical Research - April 2025 Update
Cyndi's List has become one of the most useful Internet tools for beginning genealogists as they begin the process of researching their family history. This has been a trusted genealogy research site for more than 25 years. Cyndi's List is free for everyone to use and it is meant to be your starting point when researching online. Cyndi's List was one of the first internet sites to organize links specifically for use by genealogists.
While it is true that you cannot perform actual research on the site, Cyndi’s List is the best one-stop search engine to locate the most reliable websites for research on any given research topic. Cyndi’s List is a categorized and cross-referenced index to genealogy resources on the Internet created by genealogist Cyndi Howells Ingle more than 25 years ago.
In the early 1990, Cyndi published her first volume of genealogical websites on the Internet. At that time, the content included 40,000 links on genealogic topics. Over the years, the number of links has ballooned to more than 330,000. Each year, the number of links continues to grow. Today, the Internet offers an incredible array of useful resources. The problem is finding what you are looking for in an efficient and timely manner.
Performing keyword searches on Bing, Google, and Yahoo will certainly bring up a lot of potential hits. The problem is the quality of these hits. Experience has shown on a consistent basis that the quality of information located using this method has proven to be ineffective. One of our long time patrons has been mentoring a new beginner in her family research at our library. When she was educating her friend on the benefits of Cyndi’s List the other day, she made the following statement. “Cyndi’s List opened up many doors for her. The biggest benefit that using Cyndi’s List gave her was helping her realize that you don’t know you need something or that something exists until you go browse the categories, topics, and links on the site.” After learning how to use Cyndi’s List, she never again used Bing, Google, or Yahoo.
As stated previously, Cyndi’s List is a categorized and cross-referenced index to genealogy resources on the Internet. The site is well organized along a hierarchical structure with a main index linking through to individual country pages, which, in turn, link through to individual county, provincial or state pages. Its' clean structure allows one to navigate quickly to the topic of interest and on to links that may be of benefit within that topic.
Cyndi’s List serves the function of being a card catalog index of available genealogy websites. Kind of like a Dewey Decimal index of genealogical sites on the web. Experience has proven that using the same keyword and topic search strategy on Cyndi’s List often generates a much more effective list of resources that allows you to stay focused on finding specific resources that will help you answer the questions you are seeking to locate reliable information. This will put you in the best possible position for success in your research. There are other major benefits to using Cyndi’s List.
The site is free. Genealogists are increasingly having to deal with rising monthly subscription fees. While there are subscription databases on Cyndi’s List, there are alternatives that will not require fees or if they do, they might be less expensive.
Many researchers have found links to resources that they never would have found otherwise. In fact, you will likely find resources that you never dreamed existed.
No one is an expert on everything, so having a place to turn to when you need to do in depth research makes Cyndi's website worth its weight in gold.
Cyndi’s List is organized by categories, more than 200 of them. The high level categories drill down into more and more specific sub-categories.
Cyndi’s List is being constantly added to at about a rate of about 1,500 links a month.
Although Cyndi’s List genealogy research is an incredible resource, you will inevitably run into dead links, websites that are no longer maintained and some with very little to offer. Using Cyndi's List may take a bit of patience, but the potential payoff makes it well worth your time and effort.
The ever evolving nature of content on the web makes it an impossible task to keep every link up-to-date, so there is a link on the homepage for reporting bad links. If you encounter "bad links" on Cyndi's List, meaning links that are broken or don't work, you can report them directly on the website by clicking on the "Report a Broken Link" option usually found on each category page, which will allow the site administrators to update the information with a working link.
Another beneficial aspect of Cyndi’s List are the ongoing updates. Cyndi Howells Ingle continues to make every effort to keep the website up to date and as mentioned previously, correct any broken links as fast as possible. There are four options for users to keep up with the website updates.
Check the “What’s New” page each day for a list of links that are new or updated.
Within the categories, each new or updated link will have a notation next to it which indicates its current status: New or Updated. The notation will remain there for a period of thirty days.
The Main Category Index is updated each time there is activity on Cyndi's List. Check the date under each category heading to determine when the last update was made for that category. The date is also updated at the bottom of each category page.
Subscribe to the “Cyndi’s List Mailing List”. This is a free, announcements-only e-mail mailing list for regular users of the site to learn about updates and news regarding the web site.
For more information on this topic I can send you my program webinar version of this PowerPoint with my notes plus a detailed study guide which you are welcome to save to your computer and share with any interested parties. The sources listed below can also provide additional information.
Greenwood, Val D. Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. 4th Edition. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, c2017. Genealogy (G) 929.1072 GRE
Larsen, Paul. Crash Course in Family History: An Easy Step-By-Step Illustrated Guidebook, Comprehensive Resource Directory, and Indispensable Guide to Tracing Your Own Family Roots and Stories.. 4th Edition. St. George, UT: EasyFamilyHistory.com., c2010. Genealogy (G) 929.1 LAR https://libpac.leegov.com/polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.6&pos=3&cn=2667970