Heritage Album

where can i trace my family tree on line, free of charge.?

Public Comments

1. google it
2. Go to the LDS site, in the upper part of the page click on the search next to "home" and put in your name/names http://www.familysearch.org/ If you come up with a family member, look at the bottom of the page and you might be lucky and see a batch number like this C153645 Go back to the search and put that batch number in and you should see all the other family members
3. There are lots of websites. I believe, Ancestry.Com is the best for its records. Your public library might have a subscription to it. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuses also. Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The information is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. There are errors aplenty in internet family trees. A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just Mormons.They are free to use but you need to find out their hours for the general public. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee. I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaires by to ring my doorbell. I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else either that has used their resources. But the first thing you should do is get as much information from liviing family as possible, particularly your old folks. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things, but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very significant. Ask if any family has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates and depending on the faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their faith can be very helpful. Now, if someone has told you that their Aunt Sallie has found their complete family tree on line, tell them if they haven't verified it by getting documents (that is where the cost comes in), they don't really know if they have an accurate family tree or not. Don't get too tied up in the origin of a surname. The same surname can come from more than one nationality and not everyone with the same surname is necessarily related or shares ancestors.
4. http://www.cyndislist.com/beginner.htm this is my personal favorite for beginners, and also for later use. There are thousands of sites collected, and most are free. However.. because free sites do exist, this does not mean that all research will be free. There are millions of documents and records that are NOT on the internet, some of which are the key answer to your history. You will have to find a way to access those, either by mail, by travel, or sometimes film rentals through the LDS library. Educating yourself IS free.. the more sites you find, the better off you are. Once you get going, it will become more obvious to you, where you can locate free info, and where it is going to involve some investment.
5. This has got to be one of the most asked questions on this site. You might consider wandering back through some of the older questions to check out previous answers. Here's my 2 cents. First, do your homework. Find dates (birth, marriage, death) and places (born, residence, death) for every living relative in the generations that preceded you (parents, aunts, uncles, grand parents, great grandparents, etc) Speaking for that older generation we like to talk about “those days” and can remember them better than yesterday! If you choose to stay at home I’d look at www.familysearch.org and www.rootsweb.com first. Use the data you collected to find your family members. If you want to get a sense of what is available (not all for free) go to www.cyndislist.com and look around. Now if you’re willing to go to the library, many have subscriptions to genealogy sites. In my opinion, www.ancestry.com is one of the best. Some folks might consider using the free trial period some sites offer to do all the research they ever plan to do. Should you do that, don’t forget to cancel! That said however, your ancestor’s birth date and place has a lot to do with it. Most recent records are protected by privacy laws and I’ve found records search earlier than the 1700’s very challenging. If you search takes you outside the US that can be even more challenging. I mention this only to prepare you to realize at some point you will most likely reach a point where you don’t know what else to do. This is where some of the folks in the genealogy room of your library can probably help. Finally, a lot depends if you’re doing this to “prove” your ancestry or if you’d be OK with I’m “pretty sure” my Gr-Gr-Grandfather was born in … Pretty sure is often difficult, absolute certainty is almost impossible and definitely not free. Two warnings and you can look at the other answers (1) Beware of free searches, the searches may be free but often you must pay for the results (2) be careful, genealogy can go from curiosity, to hobby, to obsession in a heartbeat.
6. To search your family tree free online is hard to do. You can get a two week free trial through ancestry.com. Here is a list of websites that might be helpful to you
7. Firstly, every country will have a different answer, so where does your family come from. If you look at the bottom of the screen you will see all the countries that use this site!!!! Argentina Australia Brazil Canada China France Germany Hong Kong India Indonesia Italy Japan Malaysia Mexico New Zealand Philippines Quebec Singapore South Korea Spain Taiwan Thailand United Kingdom United States Vietnam en Español