For many, searching for their ancestral roots is far more than a hobby, but a life-long passion. Genealogy can be quite time consuming, but, thanks to the Internet, your search may be shortened.

The single best genealogy site on the Internet is Family Tree Maker Online, from the creators of the software of the like name.

The best place to start is to click on "Genealogy How-To" off the top menu bar. Under the "Get Research Hints and Helps" section is a "1,200-page Genealogy 'How-To' Guide."

The step-by-step guide doles out the information in manageable chunks and walks you through collecting your family information, getting it organized and finding the missing pieces. It also claims "thousands of library, association, and county addresses and phone numbers, detailed instructions for locating all kinds of names, dates, and locations, a dictionary, and much more."

The directory section is divided into national, state, county, and "International, ethnic and religious resources."

Whether you need help researching through military records, want to find more about the National Archives in your area or need to know how to best work with cemeteries and funeral homes, it is all here.

Other "Research Helps and Hints" include the Online Genealogy Classes, Professionally Written-Articles (updated every three weeks), and Upcoming Events in the Genealogical Community.

The way this site is able to keep so well updated is that they also offer their services for hire.

Family Tree Maker's claim-to-fame is the "Internet FamilyFinder." You can type in the name you are researching and are given immediate results with links to pages on the Internet related to the name. This is far better than using just a normal Internet search engine like AltaVista, (though that is still a good idea to try) because the sites are selected because of their relevance to ancestral research.

While doing the search is free and all the links to the general Internet Websites will take you there at no charge, some of the information is off their proprietary CD-ROM collection of information.

You can pay as you go for these services and get the results straight off the Internet, or order the CD-ROM versions.

For a fee, they can also perform a U.S. Census lookup or check genealogical databases worldwide. They will also search war records, passenger lists (for immigration), look through phone and city records, including birth, baptism and death records.

With all these resources, it is no wonder this site has won so many industry and Internet awards.

Whether you are just curious about your past or serious about wanting to know your history, start with Family Tree Maker Online and the Internet.