My breath puffed white in the air for the first time this year as I watched the sun rise over the eastern mountains, the signal for the announcement of the Great Gratitude Awards. Late fall has been a time of thanks since the first crops were successfully gathered in. And this year, genealogically speaking, there are some fabulous crops.

Crop No. 1, and the Web site I am most delighted to have up and running is my own. Please go to Itsallrelatives.us and enjoy the music composed by my daughter and partner, enjoy the slide show and look at one or more family group. I, modestly of course, believe they are the most beautiful on the Web.

Write to me on my blog, check your surnames in my free databases, find the column you like the best and purchase it for a measly fee. If you don't find the columns you want, just let me know. I'll get them up forthwith. Note the popup ad for the It's All Relatives Columns e-book. It is a must-have for all genealogists. Ask Santa for a copy by disk or by PDF downloadable file. You can give it as a gift.

New biographies, columns and other data will be added regularly. So feel free to visit often.

The first Great Gratitude Award of 2007 goes to Simone Hentish and Angela Rogers for finally and at last getting this knock-out site on the Web. Thank you, Angela and Simone for Itsallrelatives.us.

The other genealogy crops to receive the Great Gratitude Award include a barn full of Web sites and one genealogy organization.

Though I have mentioned this site before, The Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869 at overlandtrails.lib.byu.edu just keeps getting better and better. If you haven't already done so, give it another look.

The Immigrant Servants Database at www.immigrantservants.com by Nathan Murphy of Price and Associates Inc., has set a new standard for documented and useful, as well as beautiful, Web sites. According to the site, three-fourths of the immigrants who settled south of New England in British America before 1776 came across the ocean as servants. The purpose of this site, according to Murphy, is to locate these servants, their documents and their families, and get them accurately on this Web site.

To see an example of Murphy's efforts, click on "P" on the Web site, then scroll down to Richard Perkins, Maryland, 1674. Spend some time at the bottom of the page, looking at the research notes. You'll see why www.immigrantservants.com receives a Great Gratitude award this year.

On Jan. 10, Footnote.com was launched. Its goal is to digitize original documents and upload unique content showing relationships. As valuable to historians as to genealogists, most of its content comes from the United States National Archives. Revolutionary and Civil War pensions are included.

FBI records for 1908-1922 are on the site. If you have Italian, Mexican, German or Jewish ancestry, you may find your people in FBI records. Other documents on this site include the Southern Claims Commission, Utah Territorial Case Files, some naturalization papers, military records, newspapers and some emigration/naturalization records which are later than those in the "Immigrant Servants" Web site described above.

Site developers invite users to add their documents to Footnote.com rather than keep them hidden away in shoeboxes. These same developers think they have created the greatest site since FamilySearch.org, and as you can see by my giving them the Great Gratitude Award, I may agree with them.

Another new Web site, WorldVitalRecords.com, which was launched in October 2006, just three months before Footnote.com, also receives a Great Gratitude Award. This site carries small-town newspapers, the Everton Collection, international parish registers and much more for a great monthly or yearly price. WorldVitalRecords partners with the Godfrey Memorial Library and other organizations. It also provides members with FamilyLink and We'reRelated on Facebook, services that connect families and friends.

Ancestry.com and New England Historic Genealogical Society at www.newenglandancestors.org have joined forces to provide a combined membership fee of only $155.40, an amazing price. Go to www.newenglandancestors.org/nehgs_ancestry_release_102207.pdf to discover more. This price gets a Great Gratitude Award.

The International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists or ICAPGen (www.icapgen.org) is awarded a Great Gratitude Award for creating realistic standards for professionals which can be seen on the Web site at "AG Standards Agreement."

Thank you to all these innovators who have harvested such fabulous crops for us.

• LaRae Free Kerr can be reached at Itsallrelatives@sfcn.org and at the blog on Itsallrelatives.us.