Family tree research, any where i can look for free?

Question

ive been trying to look into my family tree, but have been put off with all the sites asking for payment. do you know of any sites that are free, or where the money you pay is actually worth it. im from the uk

Many thanks

Answer 1

There are over 500,000 free sites devoted to genealogy on the Internet.

Researching your family tree is about as difficult as writing a term paper in a high school History class. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, but it isn't as easy as looking up the capital of Peru. If your great-aunt has already done it and posted her line on the Internet, you might find a line from your (dead) great grandfather all the way back to Charlemagne tonight, without any work.

If not, you will have to do the work yourself. Most teens don't want to spend the time. If you are interested, read on.

These are large and free. Many of them, however, have subtle ads for Ancestry.com in them - ads that ask for a name, then offer a trial subscription. Watch out for those advertisements.

http://www.cyndislist.com/
(240,000+ links, all cross-indexed. If you want Welsh or Pennsylvania Dutch or Oregon or any other region, ethnic group or surname, chances are she has links for it.)

The LDS site and the RWWC here would be the places to look for Great Aunt Matilda's research. Don't enter everything on either form; just name and approximate birth year. Set the year range to (+/-) 5. Don't expect to find living people, either. Look for someone who was born before 1900.

http://www.familysearch.com
(Mormon's mega-site. Click on "Search", to start with, or "Advanced Search").

Roots Web
http://www.rootsweb.com
and in particular,
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
(Roots Web World Connect; 500,000,000+ entries, of varying quality)

Ancestry.com
http://www.ancestry.com/
(which has free pages and FEE pages - so watch out)
and, in particular,
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?ln=
Surname meanings and origins

http://www.tedpack.org/begingen.html
My own site: "How to Begin"

United Kingdom Only:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/
(Biggest site for United Kingdom & Ireland)

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
(Free Birth, Marriage & Death Records)

In the USA, some public libraries have census image subscriptions. Many Family History Centers do too. FHC's are small rooms in Mormon churches. They welcome anyone interested in genealogy, not just fellow Mormons. They have resources on CD's and volunteers who are friendly. They don't try to convert you; in fact, they don't mention their religion unless you ask a question about it.

Answer 2

You cannot do your family tree totally for free, some cost is going to be incurred at some point. Follow these steps before you start

1) Talk to family Parents, Grand Parents Aunts and Uncles, Cousins etc,

2) Gather together any printed things that you have, Certificates of Birth, Death and Marriage, Baptism certificate Diary's and with luck you might track down a Family Bible.

3) Draw out a rough tree just to give you a idea of who's who

4) Be organised, you might not think it now but you can soon get swamped with Information.

The web sites below are a good source of information as is the free bmd web site in the UK and if like me you are researching in Cornwall there is also the freecen web site.

Good luck and good hunting

Answer 3

Just a little note to add to Ted's mammoth contribution - said about your Gt. Aunt posting on the web! He isn't joking - a lot of people have done all the work and it is there waiting for you to find.
For example a guy who belongs to the Bristol Family History Society has researched the Devon name of Boddy/Body, and has a site called Boddy Parts!
You could try entering the surname you want to know about - say your Mum's name was Montgomery, put in "Montgomery Family" and see what comes up.
The other thing in the UK - every County has a Family History Society and all the Members are usually willing to share their findings with other possible family.
So - you want to know about a Bristol family called Boddy - call up The Bristol Family History Society and when the web site comes up, click on "Members Interests". It will give you details of everyone in Bristol researching Boddy and how to contact them.
Happy hunting.

Answer 4

First and foremost, start with the people who are living. Find out what they know. Talk with aunts and uncles, cousins, and so on - anybody who is part of your family. Get dates, locations, names, memories, stories - it's ALL important. Find out what they remember about people who are no longer living, too. Put all your information into a database that will help you organize it. The Mormon church offers a free one, "Personal Ancestral File," that you can download from their web site (they won't bug you in terms of their religion). Once you have included as much as you can from people who are living, start to search online sites, records, etc., for matching people and events. Computers have revolutionized genealogy in the last two decades, and there are ENORMOUS amounts of data available, as well as innumerable personal genealogical web sites.

Good luck in your search!

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10151&storeId=10151&categoryId=14000&langId=-1&cg1=13669&cg2=&cg3=&cg4=&cg5=.

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin...
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default....
http://www.ancestry.com

Answer 5

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ is a great project.

FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records. It is a part of the FreeUKGEN family, which also includes FreeCEN (Census data) and FreeREG (Parish Registers).

Answer 6

Have you looked at Genes Reunited? True there are some charges if you want to go further into research, but they're very small.It's worth a look.

Answer 7

Yes, there are several. Also, your public library may have ancestry.com or heritagequest.com free for usage, as well as guidance in researching, books and periodicals.

Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with:
http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites:
http://www.ellisisland.org
http://www.castlegarden.org

Answer 8

You could try this one below, in my opinion it's the best free genealogy site on the Internet.
http://www.familysearch.org/
Hope it helps.

Answer 9

Genes Reunited, Use that trust me you do have to pay a bit but my brother has been researching all this recently and it's been a huge help, he has gone wayyyyyy back to find out we are related to royality - Henry VIII. yeah respect me lol x :)

Answer 10

there were some good replies to this question quite recently have a look here. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgC42ARwidKV6E9r.Gw5Sej6Bwx.;_ylv=3?qid=20071012124209AA9FYub