Heritage Album

Where can I see my family tree for free?

I really want to see past the 10th generation back in my family, but the one site I know of that goes that far costs over $100, which isn't worth it.

Public Comments

1. if you go onto www.myheritage.com then you can create a family tree, search for people with the same last name as you and other people in your family or maybe just random people can mail you their family tree if theirs has some sort of link to yours or if they know any additions to yours. its a great way to build a family tree. its filled with people i never even knew about! (mostly because lots of them are deceased but oh well) hope this helps bea xxx oh and another thing ask your parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, ect ect to see if they know anything about it they're bound to know a million things about your family that you don't!
2. Has your family tree already been built by someone (maybe your great aunt?) and now you want to access it? Where is it? If you post the names of your great grandparents, some will coma along to look them up and see if there is such a tree. I feel lucky that I could get my own tree back 4 and 5 generations, since most of my ancestors came to the US after the Civil War. Researching across the Atlantic can be difficult. If no one has researched your heritage, there will be no tree. You will have to build it.
3. You probably can't. I have been researching my family for over 35 years and have one or two trees that are as complete as you suggest. There are bits and pieces, that include members of my family, but so far I am the only person I know that has my family tree, except my Sister and even hers is a little different than mine due to marriages. Most of what I have found on the internet that is free, are bits and pieces that have given me suggestions on other areas to look at as possibilities. The entire field has, over the years been rocked with scandal due to fake trees that many consider real. During the late 1800's it became fashionable to have a family tree done, and to be able to "connect" with one of the royal families of Europe, this caused many fake trees to be sold to some pretty wealthy families, and they are still around and still being cited as the source of royal connection in many trees online. My point is that if you want a family tree, do the work - it is worth it.
4. You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history. Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department. Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc. Our public library has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for anyone to use (no library card required). Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers. They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you). A third option is one of the following websites: http://www.searchforancestors.com/... http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739... www dot usgenweb dot com/ www dot census dot gov/ http://www.rootsweb.com/ www dot ukgenweb dot com/ www dot archives dot gov/ http://www.familysearch.org/ http://www.accessgenealogy.com/... http://www.cyndislist.com/ www dot geni dot com/ Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever. Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example. Good luck and have fun! Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites: www dot associatedcontent dot com/article... Then there is the DNA test; if you decide you want to REALLY know where your ancestors came from opt for the DNA test. Besides all the mistakes that officials commonly make, from 10% to 20% of birth certificates list the father wrong; that is, mama was doing the hanky-panky and someone else was the REAL father. That won't show up on the internet or in books; it WILL show up in DNA. I used www.familytreedna.com which works with the National Geographics Genotype Program.
5. > I really want to see past the 10th generation back We all do, dear child. Who would be interested enough to do the 4,000 hours of research it would take, though? Your family isn't that interesting to anyone but - your family. So, if one of your older relatives has done it, and published her work on the Internet, all you have to do is ask your cousins if they know where you should look. If not, you are stuck, unless you have a couple of years to poke around. I figure I'm doing well to get back to 1850 when I do a genealogical favor for a friend, or someone pays me. 10 generations is 250 - 300 years, and will almost always mean air fare, hotel bills, and weeks sifting through dusty old ledgers in county courthouses. If you run into an immigrant, add a couple of grand to the air fare but figure you might eat better, if they were French or Italian. If they were English, stay away from the steak and kidney pie, unless you like tough little chewy things that taste like urine baked in watery gravy with a thick, dry crust. The beer is five star quality stuff, though. Drink a lot if it and stick with the sandwiches if you need solid food. The breakfasts are great. I suspect you misunderstood the site that promised you 10 generations for $100. They may have records back to the 1700s, but you'd have to use those records to do your own research. If they promised to research your line back that far for $100, they were lying. A good researcher commands $25 an hour at the minimum, with $50 being closer to average. $25 gets you a decent serious amatuer at the county genealogical society, a poor but honest widow willing to work for cash under the table.
6. If someone has told you that they have found their family tree on the internet, please tell them unless they have verified it with documents/records, they don't know what they found is accurate or not. Any website that only has family trees isn't worth a tinker's curse. To begin with the only way your family tree will be on the web is if someone, maybe a distant cousin you don't know or someone who married someone in your family, has done the research and put it online. Then you don't know if it is accurate. Frequently you will see different information on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same information on the same people from different subscribers but that no way means it is correct. Too many people copy without verifying. If you disagree with information posted on some of your family, those who run the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscriber. Ancestry.Com is not free but your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free. Ancestry.Com's real value is the number of original source records. Still you must distinguish between their records and their subscriber submitted family trees. They have all the U.S.censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have lots of military draft and enlistment records. They have a large number of immigration and land records. Not all records are online but the ones that are will save you time and money on those particular records. 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 originals you will pity the transcribers. However, if you want to copy an already prepared family tree without getting the documentation to back it up, you really aren't interested in a good verifiable family tree. If someone has already done the work and they have posted a good accurate well documented family tree that goes back past the 10th generation they have very likely spent thousands of dollars to get that information. So $100 would be a bargain. Anytime someone has done your family tree and they have a book published on their work they have every right to expect you to buy their book in order to get the information that have worked so hard to get.