Useful Links for Women's Biography: An Online Supplement
“Researching and Marketing Biographies in Cyberspace”
Barbara F. McManus and Shareen Blair Brysac
Tenth Anniversary Women Writing Women's Lives Conference, December 8, 2000

NB: this is a legacy webpage and is no longer updated.

People | Search | Archives | Books | Biographies | Compendia | Publicity Tool

Finding People

Social Security Death Index, put online by the major genealogy site Rootsweb, which includes an excellent how-to essay and a printable letter requesting a copy of the individual's Social Security application.

Address and Email Finders:

• United States:
  • Yahoo People Search (very good for addresses; you can then use the Maps tool to access a map and driving directions)
  • Bigfoot People Search (good for email)
  • WhoWhere People Search (addresses)
  • Zip Codes: this page of links from About.com includes sites that provides maps for any zip code as well as sites that provide the correct zip code for any street address
• Canada and the United Kingdom:
  • InfoSpace United Kingdom People Finder
  • InfoSpace Canada People Finder
  • Excite Canada People Finder

Finding Census Information:

• Genealogy Page from the National Archives and Records Administration. From here you can access information about the Northeast Regional Center in New York City and online census catalogs and finding aids.
• Census Records: Soundex, Indexes and Finding Aids (Rootsweb)
• Printable Forms for Census Research:
  • Useful Genealogy Forms from Ancestry Corner, including blank Soundex cards and instructions on how to read Soundex cards
  • Printable Census Absract Forms from Family Treemaker
  • Various types of genealogy forms from FamilySearch (Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints), including census forms from other countries

Using Search Engines

• Search Engine Showdown: The Users' Guide to Web Searching: Greg R. Notess tells you more than you've ever wanted to know about the major search engines, including this useful comparison chart with linked reviews and this analysis of which search engines provide unique hits
• Google is an efficient search engine which ranks and groups sites very well and offers a cached copy of the web site so you can see it even if the server is down or the site has moved (click on the “Cached” link); if you are searching for an exact phrase, put the words in quotation marks or use the advanced search feature. Google even offers very rudimentary translations of web sites in other languages.
• The HotBot SuperSearch allows the most fine-tuning, and the All the Web advanced search accesses a vast database of web sites, although the results are not clustered or ranked well.
• Babel Fish provides rudimentary English translations of web pages in French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish.

Finding Archives and Archival Information

Archival Search Engines: Most archival materials are not themselves on the Internet, but it is possible to conduct online searches of the catalogues of archives. Ready, 'Net, Go! Archival Internet Resources is a major gateway page for archival research, providing links to various archival search engines that can conduct global searches of the major archives in various countries, including the following:

• United States: National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (Library of Congress RLIN database) and NAIL, a partial database of the National Archives and Records Administration, including some digitized materials.
• United Kingdom: Archon is the home page of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and it allows online searches of the UK National Register of Archives. The Public Records Office also provides an online catalogue

Finding Archives with Online Catalogues:

• United States: Archival and Manuscript Repositories in the United States
• United Kingdom: UK Archival Repositories on the Internet
• Canada: Canadian Archival Resources on the Internet
• Consult Ready Net Go's Master List of Archives for other countries

Selected Sites with Interesting Online Archival Materials:

• American Memory: Historical Collections in the National Digital Library
• Making of America is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, with searchable online collections of nineteenth-century books and journals articles located at the Cornell University MOA site and the University of Michigan MOA site. (thanks to Enid Mastrianni for this reference)
• Robin Flies Again contains round-robin letters written by women from the Goucher College class of 1903 between 1919-1938
• University of Pennsylvania's Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image: Women's Studies contains facsimiles of diaries from six women and one woman's biography, dating from 1850-1922
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, designed for student use, contains selected primary documents dating from 1830-1930, organized according to research questions

Finding Books

• Search the Library of Congress online catalogue
• Search the New York Public Library online catalogues; find out how to subscribe to various electronic databases
• Purchase Out-of-Print Books:
  • American Book Exchange offers the largest database of booksellers in the US and Canada; others are BookFinder, Alibris, and Bibliofind
  • Antiqbook searches foreign booksellers

Finding Online Biographies

Lives, the Biography Resource offers a very large number of links to individual biographies and special collections, including one devoted to women. Distinguished Women of Past and Present emphasizes relatively well-known women, while Notable Women Ancestors: Women's Biographies includes many lesser-known women. Barbara McManus's web site on Grace Harriet Macurdy and Shareen Brysac's web site on Mildred Harnack are linked to all these pages.

Other Pages of Interest:

• African-American Women Writers of the 19th Century: electronic texts from the Schomburg Library, including many Biographies and Autobiographies
• Jewish Women's Archive contains an exhibit with biographies of nine Jewish “Women of Valor,” and a searchable virtual archive of online materials about many more Jewish women
• Celebrating Women's History Month—Biographies: brief biographies from the Gale Group
• Ready Reference: Women Biographies: annotated links from the Internet Library for Librarians
• American National Biography: information about Oxford University Press's multivolume series

Useful Compendia

• Arts and Letters Daily: An Updated Report of News and Reviews, including links to major newspapers from various countries
• British Monarchy: information about the British royal family with links to other royals
• The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences; search here to find e-mail discussion lists on many different subjects
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online
• The Foundation Center: useful directory of information about charitable foundations
• History Today Links: annotated guide to online history resources
• H-Net provides reviews and discussion lists for many humanities and social science disciplines, including H-Women, devoted to the history of women
• National Womens History Project includes events, catalogues, pedagogical materials, etc.
• Victoria Research Web offers information, reviews, and discussion list archives related to the Victorian period
• Victorian Women Writers Project: a growing database of electronic texts by women writers of the Victorian era, plus links to related online materials
• Wisecat: annotated list of top 100 web sites and top 50 search engines
• Women's History Resources: annotated list of links to online resources relevant for women's history
• Women's Studies Programs, Departments, & Research Centers: linked listing of programs with web sites

The Web Site as Publicity Tool

Finding a Web Host and/or Web Designer:

• Three online articles provide some guidance—How to Select a Web Presence Provider (by Mark Dahmke); Getting Your Site On-Line (by Barbara Bouton); Finding A Free Web Site Host (by Marti LaChance).
• PC Magazine reviews seven low-cost to free web hosting services, and About-com offers a series of articles on Finding a Web Designer. HostIndex searches and compares hosting companies and provides its own Beginner’s Guide to Finding a Web Host.
• Shareen Brysac's web hosting and design firm is Orchid Moon Productions.
• Examples of book web sites, including Shareen Brysac's two books:
  • Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew
  • Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack & The Red Orchestra by Shareen Blair Brysac
  • Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac
  • Pope Joan: A Novel by Donna Woolfolk Cross
  • Empires of Sand: A Novel of France and the Sahara by David W. Ball

Designing and Creating a Web Site: If you have access to a web server and want to create your own web pages, Barbara McManus offers Creating Web Pages: Tips for Getting Started, which also includes links to other useful pages on the topic.

Registering a Domain Name: Purchasing a domain name that reflects the title or content of your book can be done through Network Solutions or other commercial services.

Getting the Site Indexed by Search Engines:

• META tags: See META Tagging for Search Engines (by Alan Richmond) and Search Engine Watch's How To Use HTML Meta Tags.
• Submission to Search Engines: Both Web Tool Central and Submit Express offer free submission to 40 search engines; the latter also offers a paid submission service.

Online Booksellers: Books & Writers provides a free rank monitoring service to help you keep track of your book's status at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as well a paid services for improving your book's placement with online booksellers.

• See Amazon's entries for Tournament of Shadows and Resisting Hitler, including an interview with Shareen Brysac.
• See Barnes & Noble's entries for Tournament of Shadows (new paperback) and Resisting Hitler.