Exploring A Lesser-Known Genealogy Resource: Sorted By Name

Occasionally, rather than using the search feature on any given big genealogy site, I'll do a Google search instead. Quite often, the top results will lead right back to one of the big sites. But, if you persevere, and scroll far enough, or jump page by page, sometimes you'll find a new resource to check out. Such was the case when I stumbled on Sorted By Name.

To be very clear, this smaller site aggregates public records derived from other sites. It does not claim to be everything for everyone. It does not claim to be a complete listing of anything. Nor does it have a fancy user interface (far from it!) It also does not provide addresses or phone number (as most databases of public information tend to do). It does provide summary information, and links for various record sets (but they don't appear to be super recent.) There's a nice range of years from the mid 1800's to the later1900's, though some states don't seem to be well represented. And if you're really ambitious, you can actually download the source files (but unless you have dreams of being a webmaster yourself, you won't need to). 

The main landing page is simplistic. For the sake of testing the site out, I used 2 names from my mother's side of the family, followed by 2 from my father's. Each search dropped me on the page with the correct surname, but I still had to scroll (or use Ctrl+F) to find the given name on the page. And in one case, I had to move a couple pages ahead (so the search was close, but not spot-on to the correct page). The first 4 searches I did weren't really helpful. Then I tried using my grandfather's name, and it did return 2 results. There was no new information for me though.

I noticed many results seemed to be from an area where my ex-husband has relatives (Missouri), so I tried a name from his side of my tree and finally had success! Was it an earthshattering wonderful result? No, it was simply a confirmation of a SSN and birth in 1885. I tried another name from his mother's side of the family, and again was rewarded with an accurate result. I was pleasantly surprised when search result showed this (I blanked out part of the Social Security number....I know it's public information but still.....):

Again, not earthshattering, but it was interesting to see the various iterations of the daughter's name spelled out. Encouraged, I spent a little time searching for 2 people I know had several marriages each, and where I'm missing the given name for some of the spouses. Sadly, my luck did not continue.

My results were slightly more miss than hit. While search capability is very limited (NO fancy filtering or full text search on this site), the simplistic format of results wasn't entirely displeasing to me (or perhaps the simple HTML site just brings back nostalgic memories of my first website). They claim to have over 400 million entries, and say search engines do not index all their pages. I noticed some areas tended to be represented better than others. New York and Missouri seemed to show up fairly frequently. While Ohio and Florida were less represented in my particular searches.

The site is free to use, and while it certainly wouldn't be my first stop for day to day research, when I find myself doing the same searches over and over on Ancestry, I might just head over to see if anything different pops up on Sorted By Name. Because really, can one ever have enough free resources to investigate? I think not! Cracking a brick wall might happen in the most unexpected place. And sometimes, a change in how data is presented can make something you might not have noticed suddenly click. 

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with the title and search description for this post. All post content was created and written entirely by me.