Heritage Album

Where can i find my ancestors?

k so im writing a report for my family tree, and i need to find my oldest ancestor. so far ive only gotten to my great great grandpa. is there any website i can trace my ancestors that i dont need to pay?

Public Comments

1. actually you'd have better luck asking your family and going to your family grave. websites arent accurate sometimes and its better to see it your self.
2. Try looking on http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp
3. Have you checked down the back of the sofa???
4. Try: 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. P.S. Do you mean your oldest ancestor? Or do you mean the one who lived the longest time ago? When I was in high school, even the science teacher took points off for misspelled, misused or incorrect words. 5 mistakes and you flunked, no matter how correct your answers were.
5. Nothingusefullearnedatschool has given you some good information. I would add the best thing is to look for websites with records not necessarily family trees. I think Ancestry.Com is the best for the amount of records they have online. If you find it too pricey, your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free. Still you must distinguish between the records they have obtained and their subscriber submitted family trees. Ancestry.Com has ads running but when the ads focuses on someone finding a family tree with their family on it I feel it is very misleading to make people think that is how you do your genealogy. Information in family trees on any website must be viewed cautiously. Even when you see the same information on the same people from many different subscribers that no way means it is accurate. Too many people copy without verifying. Too many people think it is more important to see how many names they can accumulate rather than have a good verifiable family tree. When I go into their website, I like to go under "old search" on a little peach bar at the top as I can select certain records I want to check. You have done quite well to get back go your great great grandparents. Here is a link with 50 other links to websites. The ones that only have family trees I wouldn't spend a great deal of time on. http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm Not all records are online but the ones you find will save you time and money.