History buffs, genealogy fans, and those who just want to know who great-great Uncle Bill really married, can thank the family tree that they live in the Evergreen State. Because when it comes to searching family history online, Washington State Digital Archives is simply the best in the country.

(And we didn’t just make that up…)

The Digital Archives got a well-deserved nod in the just-on-newsstands edition of Ancestry Magazine, which put out its “most Wired States of America” rankings and gave the Evergreen State the top spot for online genealogical records.

This really comes as no surprise to me – our State Archivist tells me we have more than 80,000,000 records – yes, 80,000,0000 – on the Web that the public can click through to dig into their past.

And he also adds, “We are only just beginning.”

If you haven’t seen or visited the Digital Archives, do it virtually 24/7 at http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/. This program – which makes millions and millions of important records, photographs and thousands of audio recordings available instantly – is the first of the kind in the country and is now a model for other states wanting to preserve records electronically.

Other states that got thumbs up by AM for their online genealogical records searches included Missouri, Illinois, Nevada and Pennsylvania.