Linkpendium: North Dakota

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

​We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to online resources for genealogy. I’m always interested in sites that focus on North Dakota since many of my ancestors settled here on the prairies. A site that I hadn’t explored is Linkpendium: North Dakota. Let’s take a look.

​You can access the site here: North Dakota: Genealogy, Census, Vital Records (linkpendium.com). Linkpendium’s goal is to provide an index to every genealogy, family history, vital records and historic records and others. This means that you can search beyond North Dakota to other states to explore.
 
Using the site is straightforward. In addition to searching the entire North Dakota site, you can narrow down your search by county resources. I looked at some of the counties of interest for me in North Dakota. The format reminds me a lot of RootsWeb. And with good reason. The founders of Linkpendium were the original creators of RootsWeb. I enjoyed finding less common information such as in one county where the names of students, teachers and country schools, church history and organization were captured. Other areas lead you to historical society information that is online. Some information includes simple lists. The value is finding more information about the area where your ancestor settled. When writing your family story, you can use some of this information to provide context and layers to the time and place where your ancestor lived.
 
In addition to searching a particular state, you can go directly to the home page of Linkpendium, where you can choose to search worldwide or by state for a specific person, a city, a county, or state. Because this is an index, you will find free records as well as collections linked to paid sites such as Ancestry. One of the drawbacks of the search is that you cannot filter by time period. However, if you are just browsing for interesting information related to a family name, it might be worthwhile to see what information appears. Perhaps you’ll find a database that you’ll want to explore more.
 
With so many resources available online, sites like Linkpendium are helpful because they provide an index to explore more sites in from one location. Whether you find that missing puzzle piece or discover new information about your ancestor’s county, it is worth exploring beyond the major databases. Have fun researching!