Cyndi's List

Cyndi's List

Have you used Cyndi’s list before? If not, why not?

For those of you that haven’t discovered this site yet, it is simply a list of links located at: https://www.cyndislist.com/. Simply a list of links, right. Cyndi Ingle is the curator of this site and has been adding links forever. Well, maybe not forever, only since 1996, but that's for over 25 years. And it is not just a list, it is to quote Cyndi herself: “A comprehensive, categorized & cross-referenced list of links that point you to genealogical research sites online.” Or to put it a little less professionally, it is a treasure trove of links that will send you to places that you’ve never thought of or forgotten and one of them will be the jackpot! It is in librarian’s terms the card catalog for genealogy on the Internet.

There are, as I’m writing this 229 categories containing 315,741 links. I’m sure that by the time you read this, those numbers will be outdated. Cyndi is constantly working on her website to add links, correct ones whose address has changed, and sadly take away ones that no longer work at all. As far as I know, she does this all by herself, although I’ve heard rumors of a butler to take care of mundane tasks! Yes, that is a joke of Cyndi’s and typical of her. She loves a good joke almost as well as (or maybe better than?) She loves the color purple.

Some people reading this are probably wondering how much it costs to access her website and can you get a free trial? No free trials as the entire website has always been and still is free! Yes, free! She does all this to help out people in the genealogy community. There are ads on the website, but they are not intrusive. More importantly, there are places on her pages where you can donate money to help her with the costs of running the site. Don’t have a lot of money laying around or want to spend it on some genealogy stuff for yourself? Not a problem, another way you can help her is to use one or more of her affiliate links. Don’t know what they are? It’s simply a link to a website where you might be spending money. It costs you nothing extra beyond a few clicks on your device, however, if you buy something off thereafter clicking the links on her page (within a certain time like 24 hours; places vary), she will get a small percentage from the sale. It is a way for many website owners to make a little extra cash.

Can you do your genealogy research on Cyndi’s site? No, you’re not going to find any of your relatives on the site, unless, of course, you’re related to Cyndi herself. (I suspect I may be as my paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Ingalls- a variant spelling of Ingle.) What you will find are links to other sites where you can find those relatives.

What are these links? They are so many different kinds that it is hard to really describe them. The letter “W” as an example contains:

War of 1812| Weights & Measures| Wends & Sorbs| Western Europe| Wikis for Genealogy| Wills & Probate| World War I: The Great War| World War II| Writing Your Family’s History.

That’s a short letter with only 9 categories. Oh, and you’re probably wondering what Wends & Sorbs are. They are a group of Slavic tribes from the area of Eastern Germany. I had to explore to find the answer to that one. However, there is one link specifically for this group of people.

If you couldn’t tell from that example what makes this site great, it’s the amount and breadth of links that the site contains. Stumped on something and running out of ideas? Cyndi probably has some links you’ve either never heard of or forgot about. New to an area of research? She has several links for that area. A topic you’ve never explored? There are links on that as well. You get the idea, no matter what you’re researching in genealogy, Cyndi has probably gone there already and collected a few links for you.

What if you have a new link that she hasn’t discovered yet or you find a broken link? Check out Cyndi’s faq page where you can find out how to submit them to her. Oh, and please be patient. Remember she is just one person keeping track of all this for us!