is there a free site where i acan research my family origin?

Question

and i stress the word FREE as i am a broke college student 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 States only:

http://www.usgenweb.net/
(Subdivided into state sites, which all have county sites.)
(The Canadians have Canadian Gen Web, by province)

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
(Social Security Death index - click on "Advanced". You may find your grandparents.)

http://find.person.superpages.com/
(US Phone book, for looking up distant cousins)


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.

This is a general hint: Even though you go in through YA Canada, YA Australia, YA UK or YA USA, all of the questions go into one big "pot" and get read by everyone in the world who speaks English. Most of the people here are in the UK and USA, but you sometimes get questions and answers from people who worry about kangaroos eating their roses. So - put a nation, or, better yet, if you are asking about a specific individual, a nation and a state / province, in all of your questions. It will help people help you.

Answer 2

Like some of the reponders have said, talk to family. Get as much information from living family as possible, particularly senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very important.

Go to your public library. See what all they have in the genealogy section. If you live in or close to a large city, they probably have a lot. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can utilize. Ancestry.Com has lots of records and seems to be getting more all the time. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet.

Now, don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. They are user submitted. Most of the information is not documented. You might see different information from different submitters on the same person. Then you will see repeatedly the same information from different submitters without documentation. All too frequently, people are copying without verifying. There are errors in family trees on the internet.

Use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.

A Family History Center at at Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has tons of records, not just on Mormons. In Salt Lake City they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee. They don't bring up their religion and I have never had them to send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell. They are very nice and helpful.

Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org are 2 free sites. Still be careful about information in family trees.

Also don't be overly concerned with the origin of a surname. The same surname can frequently come from more than one nationality and not everyone with the same surname is related or share ancestors, even those of the same national origin.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

Ditto "Guy with Questions" above. Geneaolgy is a great hobby, but it is rarely free. What free sites there are, such as FreeBMD or Familysearch are only useful if you have already made quite a deal of headway with your tree and are back to 1901 and earlier - far earlier in the case of the latter. Some areas are better covered than others for free material - transcriptions of the census for certain areas are generally available for some areas as are early parish registers, but only if someone has already been there and done it or there is already a local history society doing research in the area you are working in. Again though, you need to already need to be back to 1901 at least to make decent use of the census, etc.

Genes Reunited is free to join and create a tree, but you need to sign up to get in contact with any potential matches and/or view their trees, but the information is only as reliable as the person doing the researching, which in the case of some people I've met on that site is completely bogus. There are people on GR who are nothing more than "name collectors" who have trees running well into five figures, very little of which has been accurately researched. People with the smaller trees are usually more focused with their research rather than trying to collect as many names as possible. You may find a close cousin doing the research already, in which case if they decide to share their info with you then it will be FREE, but then you're only really cheating yourself as you are not the one doing the researching. Getting the certificates, etc for yourself is half the fun, but unfortunately, it is neither cheap nor is it free. It probably should be free, but it isn't. Sooner or later you'll need to start ordering birth marriage and death certificates, and I can tell you now that they start at £7 a throw, and over the past two years I have ordered a hundred at least, costing several hundred pounds - and that doesn't include all the other photocopying expenses, travel costs and hiring people to go to places I can't get to in person. If I added it all up, including subscriptions to all the paysites on the net (Ancestry, FindmyPast, ScotlandsPeople, etc.), I reckon I am well into four figures and have spent a year's university tution fees at the very least. Don't be fooled into thinking that family tree research is free or cheap. It isn't. And don't let anyone else tell you otherwise! If however you plan on robbing a bank in the near future or are lucky enough to win the National Lottery, then go for it. Genealogy is great fun and very addictive. You'll be surprised too at what other people might have on your family in the way of old photos, etc. But first, you have to find them! For that reason alone, the only site I would suggest would probably be Genes Reunited. You should get lucky on at least one of your family lines. You'd be unfortunate if you didn't.

Answer 4

You cannot do your tree for free, there is going to be some cost incurred at some point, but web link below might be of some help to you,

Your first port of call should be to talk to any family members you can older the better. This question comes up regularly so go back through the resolved answers and you might pick up a few tips.

Good look and good hunting

Answer 5

I've been doing Genealogy for awhile now...and I've never found a "good" free site. There are free ones, but I wouldn't recommend them. They've either had no information on my family or the info they did have was wrong. You can't get around it, if you want accurate info, you have to pay for it.

Answer 6

The biggest expense will be TIME; I have spent hundreds of hours and have so much left to compile.
Remember, no matter where you obtain the information, there are mistakes (yes, I include "official" documents, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, whatever). My maternal grandmother's tombstone doesn't even have her name correct!
Anyhew, as to searching, try these:
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
For those with native American ancestry, try:
http://www.tribalpages.com/

For a fee, try a DNA test:
When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno...
For Jewish ancestry, try:
www.israelgenealogy.com
Have a look at these sites these are South African ones,
http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri...
http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html....
http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website...
http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre...

Meaning of names:
http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani...

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f...

Finding live people:
Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com

Don't forget, use your local library. Ours (a small one, yet) has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as periodicals, books and guidance from an experienced genealogist.

Keep good notes on where you find what: sources are very important.

Answer 7

http://www.familysearch.org , a Mormon web site is pretty comprehensive and is free.