Heritage Album

what are some free family tree making websites?

i want to catch up on my familys past all the way to the 17th centuary but...i had 2 pairs of grandparents and know i fave 1 pair so the other side of my family will be harder so anybody have any ideas of websites remember i need free please :)

Public Comments

1. You have 2 sets of grandparents totaling 4 people, 4 sets of great grandparents totaling 8 people, 8 sets of great great grandparents totaling 16 people. The only way those people number would not be the same is if there are some duplicates. It pyramids as you go back. Actually at one point in the last millennium the number of greats(don't know how many it is) if each were a different person they would total up more than the population of the world at that time. The only way to know your ancestry is to research it starting with yourself and working back one generation at a time, documenting everything as you do. Don't expect to put a name into a website and there it all is and it is accurate. You don't want to get overly involved in subscriber submitted family trees whether on a free website or one that you have to pay for a subscription. They are seldom documented or 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 doesn't mean it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The info can be useful as clues only as to where to get the documentation. Anytime you disagree with information someone has on one or more of your family members, the owners of the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscriber. You can make up an entirely fictitious family tree and it would be accepted by any of the genealogy websites. I believe the best for the amount of original source records online is Ancestry.Com. Still distinguish between their records and their subscriber submitted family trees. It isn't free but your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have military, land, immigration and other records. They have indexes to vital records of many U.S. states. Not all records are online but the ones you will find will save you time and money traveling all over the country to libraries, courthouses, state archives to get them. They have transcribed the records but you can view the original images. There are errors in their transcriptions, particularly censuses, but when you view the original, you will pity the transcriber. Here is a link with links to various websites, some free, some not. http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm 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 largest 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 have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. Just visit their free website, FamilySearch.org, to get the hours for the general public to the nearest Family History Center. First if you haven't done so get as much information from living family as possible. If they will let you, tape your seniors. I won't say they won't be confused or wrong on some things but they will get to rambling and telling stories and you might not want to write all of that down. Understand this, us old folks like to tell the younguns about old timey. People who have taped their senior say they go back and listen to the tape again after doing research and hear things in those story telling that they really didn't hear the first time. Frequently they break through a brick wall because of that. Find out if any has any old family bibles. If family doesn't mind, ask to see and if possible make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can yield important information.