Heritage Album

Family tree tracing websites? For Free?

I'm curious about what my family tree is but i cant find a free website to use does anyone know any free websites?

Public Comments

1. There are no websites that traces family trees. Most genealogy sites have family trees that subscribers have submitted, but you must be very very careful about taking as fact everything you see in them. They are very seldom documented and if they are they are poorly documented. You frequently will see different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same info on the same people from different subscribers but that is no proof the info is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The info can be useful as clues as to where to get the documentation. Documentation is the meat of genealogy. You can make up an entirely fictitious family tree and submit it to any one of the websites. If you disagree with what another subscriber has on one of your family members, the owners of the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscribers. Because of online family trees errors have multiplied on the internet. Now, Ancestry.Com isn't free but your public library might have a subscription to it you can use. What I like about Ancestry.Com is that is has more original source records online than any of the other websites. 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 through 1901. They have military,land, immigration and other records. Not all records are online. The ones they have will save you time and money traveling all over the country going to courthouses, libraries etc. Still be careful about their family trees. I have been warning people about this for a couple of years and recently I found the proof. I found out that me, my younger sister and my brother-in-law are all dead. No date of death was given but we died in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. The only time my sister and I were ever in New Jersey was back in 1956 when we drove through it going to and from New York. I later checked and found people on both sides of my family that married and died in New Jersey. My ancestry is mostly southern American colonial except for a couple of situations. Now, if this information had been submitted to any of the other websites, Genealogy.Com, Rootsweb, FamilySearch.org it would have been accepted. A good free source is a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's lagest genealogical collection. Their FHCs can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee. I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. First thing you should do is get as much info from living family, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. They might be confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling you wouldn't write down might turn out to be very signifiant. Find out if any of them has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death cetificates. Depending on the religious faith, bapismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates will contain valueable information.
2. get as much info as you can from your family, try www.familysearch .org or free bmd, Cyndie's list, all are free but you have to do the detective work