Family Genie Tool Bar for IE and Firefox

Mr. M. Anderson has developed by request a Genealogical Search Tool Bar that works with Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers, unfortunately it does not work with the Safari browser utilized by the Mac Computer Users. This tool bar is available for a free download but the author would be happy to have donations to defray the costs of hosting the free download.

I tried out the tool bar and it has some nice features. After you have downloaded and installed the tool bar, you must close out your browser. When you reopen your Internet browser, you will have the "Family Genie" tool bar come up underneath the IP address box.



The tool bar only allows you to input the first and last name. Once you have typed in the person that you would like to search, you select which of the databases listed below that you would like it to search.

FamilySearch.org
Ancestry.com
Genealogy.com
RootsWeb.com
EllisIsland.org
Google
MSN
Yahoo

The tool bar also has a resource menu which will link you to the following websites:

BYU Family History Site
Census Online
Cyndi's List
Genealogy Today
Genealinks
US GenWeb Project
Veterans Grave Site Locator
And any other's you can suggest.

The author of this program is happy to add to this resource menu as people suggest new sites. The one thing that the resource menu does is it provides you with direct links to other genealogy websites right on your tool bar without having to utilize your favorites or bookmarks. On the down side, when you click on one of the resource menu links, it does not search the site from the tool bar but you are taken to the website. You must utilize the specific website search engine to search the databases through the resource menu links.

If you use PAF or Family Tree Maker(FTM), both of these genealogical computer programs provide the possibility of searching the databases contained under the genealogy search tab of the tool bar. Both of these programs will search the databases using the information directly from your genealogical file but PAF only searches FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, and Rootsweb.com while FTM only searches Ancestry.com. I have not worked with other genealogical programs so I am not sure what their capabilities are regarding searching.

Overall, this is a nice tool bar, but may not be necessary if you already have your genealogical program set to search from your database and keep your Internet browsers current with your favorite links for genealogical record searches. I think that the tool bar is well done, providing search capabilities on one sleek tool bar for the major genealogical Internet sites and search engines.

If you would like to check out the tool bar, click here to be directed to Mr. Anderson's blog where there is a download link for the tool bar.