Heritage Album

Does anybody have a good website that is free for family tree information?

I am new to this and would appreciate all the help you can give. Great answer Tina! I did the first part when I was young. Now I am old and just trying to see how far before 1864 I can get for information to leave my kids, grandkids. I love the suggestions for the websites and am going there right now. Thanks

Public Comments

1. The person you know about is you, so, start with your birth certificate, which has your parents, and then ask your parents for copies of their birth certificates, which will have your grandparents on them. Then if you grandparents are living, continue the process. You will experience a problem depending on when you grandparents or great grandparents were born, in that; birth certificates did not exist before the early 1900s. Nevertheless, you need to get back to 1930 with personal records because those types of records are not available to the public for 58 to 100 years depending on the jurisdiction in which they are held. By copying or ordering these documents, you have gone to relatively little expense and you have three generations plus yourself and you have it documented with primary documents. That will give you 2 parents, 4 grandparents, and 8 great grandparents names to start researching. You can now use death certificates, marriage records, census records, immigration records, church records, court records and many other sources to research your ancestry. Your public libraries will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you should be able to use Heritage Quest at home. Another free online resource is the LDS/Mormon site, which has many free online records at http://www.familysearch.org/ . In addition to their online records, they have the Family History Centers where you can go for help with research and look at microfilm and microfiche and they only charge if they have to order something specifically for you or you need photocopies. Find a location near you on their website and call to check hours of operation. http://www.familysearch.org/ . Additionally, USGenWeb is another free online resource at http://www.usgenweb.org/ . This sprawling all-volunteer site is packed with how-to tips, queries and records for every state and most counties within those states. Special projects usgenweb.org/projects cover subjects such as censuses, tombstones and family group sheets. Do not miss the easy-to-overlook search of the entire site http://searches.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ht… Then, there is Rootsweb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames and leave queries on the message boards. Also, be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example, the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills and other court documents at http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinear… And, do not forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com/ and ProGenealogist top 100 genealogist websites at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/articl… both of these sites have many links for both free and fee based sites but most of the fee based sites are marked with a $. There is an excellent tutorial for those who are new to family research at http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ I could list more websites but this list is comprehensive while being easy on the wallet—something everyone can appreciate these days. You can always come back here for answers.
2. make a suggestion at http://weliv.webs.com/
3. So many people ask this question that we top 10 all have a copy-and-paste answer to it. You may get 3 - 4 of them. All 10 are in the resolved questions. There is quite a bit of overlap - for instance, we ALL suggest the LDS site - but we each have our favorite sites and tips. You'd learn a lot in a short amount of time if you browsed them. That said, here's mine: There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. I have a page that has links to some huge ones, below, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first. If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it. If you are in the USA, AND most of your ancestors were in the USA, AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access, AND you are white Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly. Many young people stop reading here and pick another hobby. No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late. You won't find living people on genealogy sites. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth. Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources. Cross-check and verify. So much for the warnings. Here is the main link: http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html It has links to Cyndi's List.com - A catalog of 250,000 sites; Family Search.org - the LDS mega-site; RootsWeb.com, plus sub-links to RootsWeb World Connect - almost 600,000,000 entries; RootsWeb Social Security Death Index; RootsWeb California Death Index, 1940 - 1997; Ancestry.com - some of their pages are free, including Ancestry.com's page on Surname meanings and origins; Ancestry.com's Query boards - 160,000 of them US Gen Web, with sites for each state and each county within each state; Superpages.com, a US phone book for looking up living relatives; Find-a-Grave.com - 35 million entries; GenForum.com - 50,000+ real genealogy query boards; My page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites. Having one real link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look". You will need the tips. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, expect too much accuracy, or mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library. I watched the mistakes beginners made. The query forms on the sites are not really intuitive.
4. As with everything in life, "It all depends...." Each of my grandparents was born before 1864, so that date means only 2 generations for me. (Yep, I am a senior citizen, but in my family a generation averages about 35 - 40 years.) A word of caution: don't palce too much credence in official records, such as birth/marriage/death certificates. I have seen too many errors in them. Likewise, personal accounts/records may also be flawed. My Mom's Mom grew up with a family and thought they were her relatives, but when the "grandfather" died, she found herself out on the street with no inheritance because she had been "taken in" to be raised (not adopted). A common thing back in the 1800s. So, as often as possible, obtain at least 3 sources, and then still have reservations. There is absolutely no way to ever be certain just who your ancestors were; but the good news is, whoever you find, and their stories, will probably match your "real ancestors". (Which is why I recommend DNA testing; if the names/places/dates I have are not 100% accurate, with the DNA results I know that at least my ancestors WERE there. So, try all of these: 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. Don't forget Yahoo! Genealogy Answers, googling for such things as "kentucky genealogy society", "smith genealogy society", etc.