How to find family history for free?

Question

I want to know more about my family but I don't want to have to pay for it.

Answer 1

You may want to look at sawy75's other questions and answers before you write to him about genealogy.

Here is my standard answer. People ask this question 3 - 20 times a day here. Most of us top 10 paste responses. You folks get more advice than normal, we don't get finger cramps.

The short answer to "How can I find my family tree?" is that if one of your great-aunts has spent 30 years researching it, AND has posted her research on the Internet, you'll find it. If not, you will have to do the research yourself. It is not difficult, but it takes time. Most young people do not want to spend a couple of hours a week doing research, because it is too much like homework. So, you may want to skip the rest of this answer. If not, read on.

If your line has been "done", chance are it is on one of these two sites. When you search, don't fill in all of the fields. Start with given name, surname and birth year. Use (+/-) 5 for the birth year. Expect to spend 15 - 45 minutes on each. Neither has any living people, so don't enter your own name.

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; 460,000,000+ entries, of varying quality)

Here are a few more. The resolved questions have lots of links and tips.

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.)

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.

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, if you are asking about a specific individual, put a nation and a state / province. It will help people help you.

Answer 2

Best of luck!

You are not going to be able to push a button on the internet and up pops your family tree. It requires work.

There are websites that have family trees, but you must be very careful about taking as fact everything you see in them. That is true whether the website is free or paid. They are submitted by folks like you and me and most are not documented. Even when you see the same information by many different submitters that is no guarantee it is correct.
A lot of people are copying without verifying.

The information should be used as clues as to where to get the documentation and that is where the cost comes in.

Your public library might have some good resources. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com which has lots of records.
They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has lots 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 any of their missionaries by to ring my doorbell.

But then you will have cost in getting courthouse records, wills, deeds etc.

Also Vital records on birth,marriage and death records. The application for a social security number as well as the death certificate will give parents' names including mother's maiden name and place of birth,

Until the first quarter of the 20th century, governing bodies in the U. S. were not recording vital information. Most of the information will be found in churches.

Don't be overly concerned with surnames. The same surname can come from more than one nationality. Also people with the same surname are not necessarily related or share ancestors, even though they come from the same national origin. Anybody that suggest you can find your family history by putting your surname in and googling it doesn't know anything about genealogy.

Answer 3

No one ever does! Anyhew, here are some ideas...

The "easy way" would be to hire a professional genealogist.

Due to the amount of information required to do a fairly decent family tree, if you go back more than just a few generations, you will find it to be VERY time intensive. PCs now have humongous storage on their hard drives; but, if you COULD put everything into the computer, you will soon find it is very difficult to organize all that information. I currently have more than 100 MB of info, and most of it is not even in the computer YET.

If you are sincerely interested in your ahnentafel, your genealogy, you will need to be dedicated and organized. So, try these sites and suggestions:

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.

I became interested in genealogy when I was a small lad, before I started to school, as my Mom would tell me about her parents, my Dad's parents, and on back. That is also when I first got used to the idea of "the power of 2": You have 2 parents, they each have 2 parents, and so on. 5 generations ago, you would have had 16 g-g-g-grandparents; by 10 generations ago, the number would be 512 "grandparents"; by 35 generations ago, the number is 16,179,869,184 persons (compared to a total of 6,700,000,000 people alive on Planet Earth today). In other words, basically every one on earth can trace their COMMON ancestry back to within the last 34 generations! (Or, since Medieval Times.)

Good luck!

Answer 4

Sorry but no such animal as free anymore. Check with your County Registrar of Voters or the County Clerk to check census records.
www.ancestry.com

Answer 5

Go to rootsweb.com. I love that site! Make sure to look at the sources for the info, and especially be weary of the LDS (Mormons) info, as it is notoriously incorrect.

Answer 6

u may contact with me and i may help u for free [e-mail]