Where would I find some good web sites for looking up ancestry?

Question

I am doing a heritage scrapbook and I would like to include as much information as I could about my relatives but most of them have passed away so I thought I might research online which with my obsessive personality as started a new hobby.

Answer 1

Hey sherrelu3...,

There are some really great sites. If you look at the surname list, and use each surname at GENFORUM you can find various people interested in the same surname. I found old family pictures that way. Obituaries, while morbid, provide a great source of information about a persons life, personality, and relations. Cemetary pictures and stone rubbings, give good information too. Here are some sites you might like. Note that many are free. You can get pictures of ships from Ellis Island, copies of the Manifest too, for the people that may have had passage. Birth, Death, Marriage certificates are great in a scrapbook because they show the chain of relationship (parents are listed). You can get them from a variet of locations.

Answer 2

I have two pages with links and exercises designed to give people just a taste of six major large, free genealogy web sites. I'm going to use the pages for a 90 minute introductory course at my county library. It is designed for people who live in the USA.

I could use some feedback and you have asked for an introduction to on-line genealogy. If you'd like to work through it, you'd need a list of your grandparents; great-grandparents would be even better. For each person you'd need as many of the seven basic facts as possible; birth date & place, marriage date & place, death date & place, spouse's name (maiden name for women).

It starts at
http://www.tedpack.org/genclass1.html
if you are interested.

If it helps (or hinders), I would appreciate some feedback. Write to me via the e-mail link at the bottom of either page. What was clear, what wasn't. What worked for you, what didn't.

Answer 3

TRUST ME ON THIS ONE...go to your local library and ask them what they have on geneology. Most libraries have several systems available on computer there, AT NO COST!
Been there, done that. All of the Ancestry.com "pay-per-view" sites are bordering on fraud. Most of the stuff they have compiled is considered public information and you shouldn't have to pay for it. You can get just as far or further for free at the library than you will on the internet.
If you have to do internet only, the Latter Day Saints website has one of the largest, free, geneology databases on the net. That may be a good place for you to start.