In addition to the hundreds of databases available on AmericanAncestors.org, there are databases published by other organizations which American Ancestors subscribes to and makes available for its Research and Contributing members to access from home. These databases can be accessed by clicking on the links below and logging in with your AmericanAncestors username and password.
Please note that these databases are third-party-operated sites, and American Ancestors is not responsible for the functionality, accuracy, quality, or timeliness of any content contained on the third-party sites accessed from this page. Users are responsible for adhering to any and all Terms and Conditions and Copyrights of the database owners.
Looking for digital collections of manuscripts and books from our research center? Find our digital collections here.
World
Academic OneFile Select
Gale’s premier periodical resource, Gale Academic OneFile, provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning.
AM Explorer
Access millions of pages of primary source collections across the entire portfolio of Adam Matthew Digital, spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries. Explore 90 unique collections including, Colonial America, American Indian Histories and Cultures, Central Asia, Persia, and Afghanistan, 1834-1922, and African American Communities.
Archives Unbound
The Archives Unbound program has published more than 500 collections consisting of 300,000 documents totaling and more than 13 million pages. Strengths include: U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history. Broad topics include: African American studies; American Indian studies; Asian studies; British history; Holocaust studies; LGBT studies; Latin American and Caribbean studies; Middle East studies; political science; religious studies; women’s studies; and more. Explore the entire catalog of offering here.
Colonial Caribbean
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, Colonial Caribbean from AM Explorer makes available materials from 27 Colonial Office file classes from The National Archives, UK. Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.
Diversity Studies
Gale OneFile: Diversity Studies explores cultural differences, contributions, and influences in the global community. This collection includes more than 2.7 million articles from 150 journals, updated daily.
Fine Arts & Music
The Gale OneFile: Fine Arts & Music Collection 10.4 million articles covered in 250 journals, such as the Wilson Art Index and the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) index are available in full text.
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy has defined medieval, for the purpose of its activities, as before 1500 AD. The organization is principally interested in links from this period to modern genealogy (16th to 21st centuries), including the identification of "gateway" ancestors. Geographically the scope is mainly European, but they are open to wider interests.
General OneFile
Nearly 8,000 titles provided in full text, Gale General OneFile , includes 14,000 periodicals, newspapers, reference eBooks, and multimedia sources, along with more than 200,000 images, and thousands of audio files and videos. A broad range of perspectives on timely topics can be explored with full-text newspapers, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and USA Today . Popular magazines for business, fashion, home, travel, sports, and more, provide users with relevant information for their specific interests and projects. Finally, Gale General OneFile enriches the research experience with video and audio from BBC, National Public Radio, and other reliable sources.
HeritageQuest Online
HeritageQuest Online is rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, convenient research guides, interactive census maps, and more. With more than 4.4 billion records, it delivers an essential collection of genealogical and historical sources—with coverage dating back to the 1700s—that can help people find their ancestors and discover a place’s past. Collections include:
- Censuses—Over 700 million records from the U.S. Federal Census 1790-1940, and national censuses including Argentina, Netherlands, Czech Republic and several other countries.
- Books—Over 22,000 family and local histories, compiled genealogies, documentary collections, church records, military records, vital records, city and county histories, and more.
- City Directories—Over 1.5 million records from various US city and county directories during 1821-1989
- Military Records—Containing over 2 million records from selected state and country military records including the US Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files 1800-1900, US Records of Confederate Prisoners of War 1861-1865, and US Remarried Widows Index to Pension Applications 1887-1942.
- Wills and Probate Records—Contains more than 170 million pages from the largest collection of wills and probate records in the United States, with searchable records included from all 50 states spread over 337 years (1668-2005).
- Freedman’s Bank—Contains an index and original images of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company's registers of Signatures of Depositors 1865-1871.
- Maps & Photos—Includes US Indexed County Land Ownership Maps 1860-1910, US Enumeration District Maps and Descriptions 1940, US Indexed Early Land Ownership and Township Plats 1785-1898, and Library of Congress Photo Collection 1840-2000.
Informe Academico
Quality reference material on an easy-to-use interface configured for Spanish-speaking users, allowing researchers to analyze topics and conduct research in Spanish. It is not simply translations of English-language materials: Gale OneFile: Informe Académico meets the research needs of Spanish-speaking users with a wide range of full-text Spanish and Portuguese language scholarly journals and magazines, both from and about Latin America.
Marquis Biographies Online
PLEASE NOTE: This database limits access to five simultaneous users. If you are unable to access it when the limit has been reached, please try again later.
Marquis Biographies Online features comprehensive profiles on over 1.4 million individuals from all fields of endeavor. It includes biographies from Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who in the Midwest, and many other Who’s Who titles.
Migrations to New Worlds
Migration to New Worlds from AM Explorer documents the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia. Split across two modules, and including collections from 26 archives, libraries and museums, this resource brings together the movement and memories of millions across two centuries of mass migration.
Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures to arrival and permanent settlement.
Migration to New Worlds: The Modern Era begins with the activities of the New Zealand Company during the 1840s and presents thousands of unique original sources focusing on the growth of colonization companies during the nineteenth century, the activities of immigration and welfare societies, and the plight of refugees and displaced persons throughout the twentieth century as migrants fled their homelands to escape global conflict.
Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources brings the thoughts, words, and actions of past centuries into the present for a comprehensive research experience. With authoritative content and powerful search technologies, this database features collections from around the world, such as: Middle Eastern Studies; Law, Government, & Political Science; Latin American Studies; Indigenous and Native Peoples; African American Studies and MUCH MORE! Explore the entire catalog of offering here.
World History
Gale In Context: World History reaches back to the ancient world—and forward to today's headlines—to deliver a chronicle of the people, cultures, events, and societies that have formed the history of humanity. A range of topics such as Aztecs, Industrial Revolution, Silk Road, the Buddha, Space Race, and more provide a wide perspective across the globe.
United States
American History
American History from AM Explorer documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. This unique collection is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
American Indian Histories and Cultures
American Indian Histories and Cultures from AM Explorer presents manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
American West
From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, American West from AM Explorer documents the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Browse a wide range of rare and original documents including printed books, journals, historic maps, broadsides, periodicals, advertisements, photographs, artwork and more.
Colonial America
Colonial America from AM Explorer makes available all 1,450 volumes of the Colonial Office 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. Colonial Office 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.
Everyday Life and Women in America
Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920 from AM Explorer showcases unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
HistoryGeo.com
HistoryGeo.com provides interactive maps and data on original landowners from Public Land States and Texas. Also includes a collection of historical maps.
The HistoryMakers
The HistoryMakers is a video oral history archive dedicated to preserving African American history as the missing link in American history. Focused on American history, oral history, and education in general and more specifically on African American history, education, music, law, the arts, science, technology, media, medicine, entertainment, fashion & beauty, business, the military, politics and sports, The History Makers is a combination archive, library, museum, stock footage collection, on-line educator and educational PBS/TV programming. Its topics include, but are not limited to, African American organizations and associations, slavery, reconstruction, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and black authors.
Jewish Life in America
Jewish Life in America from AM Explorer provides access to a diverse range of records which can be used to explore the history of Jewish communities in the United States of America, from the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. Sourced from archival collections held by the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City, this rich collection brings communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture to life while tracing Jewish involvement in the life of American society as a whole.
These records are complemented by a wealth of research tools including a chronology of major events, essays by leading scholars, guides to the collections featured, a selection of articles from the American Jewish Year Book, a gallery of visual highlights, and biographies of prominent personalities featured in the resource.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice from AM Explorer allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.
In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
US History
Gale In Context: U.S. History contains contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events, and topics in U.S. history. Topics range from the arrival of Vikings in North America to the first stirrings of the American Revolution and on through the Civil Rights movement, September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the War on Terror. Reference content, millions of news and periodical articles, and more than 5,500 rare and vital primary source documents that range from slave journals to presidential papers are aligned to curriculum and provide many options for an exploration of U.S. history.
Virginia Company Archives
Virginia Company Archives from AM Explorer provides a comprehensive record of the history of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624. Centered upon the archives of the Ferrar family who played a significant role in the Company's administration, this resource documents the founding and economic development of the Virginia colony, relations between colonists and indigenous peoples, and early trade between Britain and America. It is also a crucial source for London's economic history and the religious and social history of early modern England, with further content documenting the Ferrars' continued interest in the European colonization of North America in the years after 1624.
U.S. Newspapers
NewspaperArchive
NewspaperArchive is an online database of billions of newspaper articles and obituaries from all over the world, spanning from 1607 to 2023. NewspaperArchive is a great tool for genealogists and historians, providing dates, names and stories, about individuals, communities, and the world.
19th Century U.S. Newspapers
The 19th Century U.S. Newspapers database provides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of primary-source newspaper content from throughout the 1800s. It features full text and images from hundreds of papers from every region in the U.S., and it contains a wealth of genealogical content, including birth, death, and marriage notices. A few of the New England and New York papers: Boston Daily Advertiser, New Haven Palladium, Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, New Hampshire Statesman, Providence Patriot, Vermont Chronicle , and New York Herald.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, Indigenous Newspapers in North America from AM Explorer covers nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.
Boston Globe
Millions of pages of searchable, full-text articles from The Boston Globe, covering 1980 to the present.
Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876
Early American Newspapers contains over one million pages of fully searchable early newspapers, such as the Boston Gazette, New-York Evening Post, and many more. Includes marriage, death, and court records.
The New York Times
Millions of pages of searchable, full-text articles from The New York Times, beginning in 1985. Additionally, an index is available from 1965 to the present.
United Kingdom and Ireland
Irish Newspaper Archives
Through the Irish Newspaper Archive you will find a large collection of Irish newspapers from 1738 to current day. The archive consists of over 6 million images of pages of newspaper content from titles North and South of the Irish border, and includes newspaper obituaries, and birth, death and marriage notices.
Canada
Parchemin Notarial Database
This database has a limited number of downloads available. Please download records only when necessary. Parchemin Notarial Database contains hundreds of thousands of records from notarial minutes recorded in early Quebec between 1626 and 1799.
Genealogy Quebec
Genealogy Quebec is home to over 50 million historical and genealogical documents and images. These varied documents focus mainly on Quebec, but also on Acadia, New Brunswick, as well as parts of Ontario and the Northeastern United States. The collection include the following types of documents: Parish registers, Notarized documents, Death cards, Censuses, Tombstones, Obituaries, City directories, Marriage indexes, Family genealogies, Postcards, and Baptism, marriage and burial records.