Computer Guru's Tools Unearth Families' Roots

The personal computer has become one of humanity's common threads, saving and storing all of our current pertinent information, while genealogy is our never-wavering link to the past. One man who works in both of these past and present mediums is Stephen Morse.

Stephen has created more than 130 Web sites dedicated to making it easier to access genealogical records. The first site he created was a new database for sifting through the imperfect Ellis Island immigration records.

When Morse made his initial Web site accessible to the general public, family historians and scholarly genealogists from around the globe instantly became smitten with his one-step research platform. In 2003, Morse was named the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies' Outstanding Contributor to Jewish Genealogy.

You can read an excellent article about Stephen Morse written by Toshio Suzuki and published in the Jewish Review at http://www.jewishreview.org/Archives/Article.php?Article=2006-10-01-2704

Comments

[Joe Lalley]

I am pleased to learn about the work of Mr. Morse. What are some of the web titles or web addresses for his web sites? Are they primarily devoted to Jewish genealogy?

May we all do God's will God's way this day and always.

Joe Lalley

[Doris Wheeler]

What a treasure! stevemorse.org is an amazing site. Thank you.
Doris

[Jason Presley]

http://www.stephenmorse.com/

His one-step search engines are connected to dozens of different databases of census, passenger, birth/death and other records. The award wasn't necessarily due to his work with Jewish genealogy specifically, it was more that specific group recognizing his contributions to genealogical research on the web in general.

[Louise Vrande]

I learned about Steve Morse's Ellis Island search engine maybe a couple of years ago. Until then, I had been frustrated about not being able to find my father there. From another source, I finally found out the name of the ship he came on and its arrival date in New York. But I still wanted to see the actual manifest. So I searched for the ship and date and used a wildcard for the last name. Not only did I find my father (with an unusual spelling), but I was also able to find two of his brothers (with the same unusual spelling). That makes Steve Morse a hero to me.

[Joy Rich]

Dr. Stephen Morse received a Lifetime Achievement Award in August 2006 at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societyies' 26th Annual International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, hosted by New York City's Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc.