ancestory search question?

Question

I'm trying to find out about my family's ancestory and past. Is there a site that someone can tell me about that is for free where I can find my ancestors and my family's past. Cause every site I've looked up you need to purchase something. I could really use someone's advice right now. So if you can tell me a good site that would be great! Thanx!!

Answer 1

Hi Maddy!

BTW, I LOVE your avatars hair!!

I'm going to paste my standard answer on how to get started. Hopefully, there is a tidbit or two that will be useful to you. Just remember, it is a process and will take some time. Don't get frustrated and remember, if you run stuck you can always post another question. There are so many sweet, friendly people on this forum, who will gladly help. Take care!

The best place to begin researching your family tree is with your very own family. Get a note book and write down everything that you know about yourself and your siblings. Include dates and places of birth, marriage and if applicable death dates and places of interment. As soon as you have all that, move back a generation to your parents. Once you have all of that, move back to your grandparents and keep going until you run stuck. Once you have written down everything you know, talk to your family members. Sometimes even your siblings know more than you do, but usually if you talk to your parents or grandparents they can go a generation or two further than you can simply because they are a generation or two older than you.

One thing I should mention to you since you are a new genealogist is to document EVERYTHING! This will save you so much work later. If you get a date from Grandma's bible, simply document that information. If you can get in the practice of doing this from the beginning, you will avoid making the big mistake that most of us genealogists made while we were starting out. Think about it... if you have 50 people in your family tree, you might be able to keep this information "in your head", but what happens when this number rises to 500 or 50,000? After a while genealogy gets in your blood and 50,000 people is not and unfeasible number.

What happens next is up to you. What are you interested in? Would you like to know who all of your great great grandparents are? Are you interested in a particular surname? Are you trying to prove that you are related to someone famous? Only you know the answer to these questions? Once you've decided which avenue you want to explore you can continue. There are many records out there that genealogists use. Many of them are free, but there are others that are by subscription.

One thing I need to mention is that to trace your genealogy right, it is going to cost you, whether it be for a subscription to a genealogy site, paying for vital records, making copies of documentation, buying gas to visit libraries or cemeteries, but these are such worthwhile expenditures. The nice thing is that it is not money you spend all at one time. Many of my roots came from Michigan so everytime I go up there for a visit, I carve out time to got to the library or to the cemetery etc.

There are many people on this forum who are avid genealogists who have never paid for a membership to ancestry; however, I have found it invaluable. You might want to visit ancestry because they do have some free areas on their site. I live next to a branch of the National Archives and they have every census record in existence. If you start out looking up people in the census using the microfilms, there is a process you must follow that requires you to look at two microfilms before you find the census page of the family that you need. This is very time consuming and if you are looking up a family member with a name that is usually spelled wrong, there is no guarantee that you will find it. The beauty of having a membership to ancestry is that they have the censuses fully indexed meaning you can type in a name and pull it right up without looking on two microfilm rolls. Further, you can manipulate spellings of the name and the places you are searching in a single search. This alone has made Ancestry worth the money I have spent for a subscription. Many times Ancestry runs specials and I pay under $100.00 per year so if you divide that by 12, the expense is less than a subscription to Netflix or just about anything else. Ancestry also offers Military records, obituaries, marriage records, birth and death indexes and much much more.

With that said, there are also a lot of free resources. I have over 500 links to free genealogy records that I myself have found online. Here are some that can help just about everyone.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f... This is the webpage to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

http://searches.rootsweb.com/
This is a list of popular searchable databases on Rootsweb. There is a link to the Social Security Death index, as well as death records for California, Kentucky, Maine, and Texas. There are some international databases included too.

http://www.ellisisland.org/
If you are from the United States and know that you have ancestors that immigrated from other countries, there is a chance that Ellis Islands website could help you. You can actually look at the ships manifests on this site. It is so cool! You could even get information like how much money was in your great grandfathers pocket when he came over.

Then there are the message boards at both Ancestry and Rootsweb. They have boards for surnames, counties, States, and countries. This would be a great place to post information you already know about family members and attempt to build on it. It is always wise not to post information on living family members.

http://boards.ancestry.com/default.aspx....
http://genforum.genealogy.com/

You can also look at many of the existing trees out there to see if anybody has created one including members or your families. Sometimes you get lucky, but if you find one out there, I would recommend researching the information yourself before including it in your tree.

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/..........
http://www.gencircles.com/

After you get so far, you may want to try to input your information into a family tree program. There are several commercially available; however, there are a few that you can download for free off of the internet. PAF (Personal Ancestry File) is a very respectable program that you can download at

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/sto...

There are several different language versions available. Most programs have places for you to document your sources and have a file format called GEDCOM making it easy to share your tree with people using a different genealogy program or easy for you to change programs without reentering all of your information.

So, as you can see from my answer... there is a whole lot to learn about genealogy and finding resources. I learned just by jumping in and doing it. Once you get out in the genealogy community you will see that there are a lot of people eager to help you in any way they can. Have I made mistakes along the way? You bet... who hasn't? You will find though that the rewards are numerous and that it can get quite addicting.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through my profile. Blessings

Answer 2

cyndislist.com is an excellent place to start. Even though most of the links are to free sites, be careful because it links to some pay sites. I do most of my research on rootsweb.com. Rootsweb is affiliated with Ancestry.com so some of the links take you to Ancestry.com, but after using it a few times, you will be able to avoid those links.
Rootsweb is an easy site to use and is free. Localities is a great search that will tell you which county your ancestor's town is in (you need to know the town and state) and will give you links to resources for that county. Give it a try!

Answer 3

www.ancestory.com I ran into the same problem. But I found so much for free on their website. After about a year I finally purchased a membership. Best thing I ever did. It helped so much. It was sooooooo worth the $$$$. The best thing was when I found a 20's census form. My great-grandparents where the first ones on the page. That was really awesome. The fact that my great-great grandparents were listed as coming from Prussia, not Germany really brought it all into perspective. Several years later on the next census, they were listed as coming from Germany. Suddenly, my high school world history class all made sense.

Answer 4

well honey, i have run into the same problem however i decided to buy the family tree and get a membership with ancestry.com without them i would really be lost.
you can put your tree down and keep track of everything you find. i found the same problem,so i just choose the program right for me. you can try to locate family members who may have information you can use to get you started. i don't think anything is free any more other than yahoo,and i am grateful for that service.
tracey

Answer 5

, , and are the 3 main sites. THere are lots of others. I just wanted to let you know that you can find information at your local LDS Library and they have access to those pay sites you have run into. It's free..... THey've been a world of help to me over the years.

Answer 6

A good place to start would be Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. She put together most of the resources that you can find online in one place.

http://www.cyndislist.com/

I would also recommend paying for ancestry.com. They have got an incredible amount of resources especially U.S. census records.

Answer 7

www.familysearch.org
There are some things you can purchase, but for what you need you should be able to do the search for free. I have used it many times before to get some stepping stones and head me in the right direction.

Answer 8

Nah that is rubbish. you will desire to pay to get admission to any respectable tips. I pay a tenner a month for ancestry uk whether apart from they do loose trials and likewise pay in step with view credit which works out at sort of a fiver. I dragged my feet over paying and wasted infinite time and expertise. i do no longer remorseful approximately signing up it replaced into rather well worth that is going to truthfully ;-)

Answer 9

You could try
www.ancestry.co.uk they have free BMD records.
www.ancestry.com I think they do a free trial, it was for two weeks.
www.familysearch.org/eng This ones the Mormon site it's really good for old stuff, but pants for the new stuff, but it's completely free.

Answer 10

familysearch.org is free. Also try message boards at Rootsweb.com and Yahoo Groups. They will put you in touch with others researching the same names or locality.

Answer 11

I am doing research also, and can try to help you. I do have access to different sites for this purpose. Join my site at this
address:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JordanKennedy/
Post your questions there, and I will see what I can do to help you out!