The search mechanism is super simple. You can see the search page in the image to the right. (Click on the image to see a larger picture.) You can perform a search, then use the "Narrow By Category" menu to refine the results.
The goal of the web site is to address some of the common search challenges:
- how to find Mennonite names and locations having many variant spellings
- intending to search genealogy, but getting mostly results unrelated to genealogy
- how to quickly filter through search results by a specific category (census, obituary, cemetery, etc.)
- search engines missing results when the intended places/years are listed too far removed from a person's name
The site has results for both Prussian/Russian and Swiss Mennonites, but it seems there is much more information available on the Prussian/Russian side.
MennoTree is available to everyone free of charge. The site is accepting advertising although I didn't see any ads when I used it. I believe the site owner is recruiting advertisers so we will probably see ads in the future.
The site is new and presently contains almost no information about the site's owner or long-term plans. An email message lists the owner as Michael Penner. To try MennoTree for yourself, go to http://mennotree.com.
My thanks to newsletter reader Suzanne Dyck for telling me about this new online resource.
