Where's a good site to go to traces ones geneaology?

Answer 1

You need as much information as possible to start out, so ask all your living relatives for as much information as possible, write it all down, and who said what (source).
Don't forget your local library; ours has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as books and periodicals. While your specific tree may not be online yet, if you can go back far enough you will most likely find branches of your tree online.
Here are a few:
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/

http://www.geni.com/

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

For Scotland, check:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

For Sweden:
http://www.genline.com/databasen/
-http://www.northpark.edu/home/index.cfm?...
http://www.finlandia.edu/catalog/intro.p...

For ship’s passenger lists, try:
http://www.immigrantships.net/
www.cyndislist.com/ships.htm
www.geocities.com/Heartland/5978/Emigration.html
www.immigrantstips.net/
www.searchforancestors.com/passengerlists/
www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/passenger-arrival.html

For those with native American ancestry, try:
http://www.tribalpages.com/
http://www.cherokee-nc.com/geneology.php...
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/herita...

Netherlanders: http://www.genlias.nl

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

For people from India, try:
http://www.fibis.org/

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...

Here are some general sites with lists of African names:
http://www.swagga.com/fname.htm
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/afr.php
http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/ba...

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...

Military:
www.military.com
http://www.familymilitaryrecords.com/

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/militar...

http://websearch.about.com/od/peoplesear...

http://genealogy.about.com/b/2007/05/24/...

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ww1/draft/sea...

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

Good luck!

Answer 2

Start with your living family, get as much info from them as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. What might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very significant. People who do this state they have gone back a few years after doing research and listened to the tape again and heard things they didn't hear the first time around. Find out if any one has any old family bibles.

Check the genealogy section of your public library and find out what all they have. They might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use. Ancestry.Com has lots of records and seems to be obtaining more all the time. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have U.K. censuses also.

Now, don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The information is user submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same info repeatedly by many different submitters, that is no guarantee it is correct.
A lot of people copy without verifying. Use the information as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

Also if a person has Family Tree Maker and a subscription to Genealogy.Com,for instance, they can merge other people's trees into their tree and then upload the merged tree into various websites. That means they are more interested in obtaining lots of people in their database and not quality research. Unfortunately, Genealogy.Com encourages that.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church has records on people all over the world, not just 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 won't try to convert you or send their missionaries by to ring your doorbell.

Rootsweb.Com and FamilySearch.Org are probably the best 2 free sites. They have lots of instructions on how to go about getting your family history.

Answer 3

ancestry.com or genealogy.com

get ready to do a lot of hard work, but it's interesting and fun.

Answer 4

www.ancestry.com or / .co.uk both subscription only sites though, and www.familysearch.org is completely free, its amazing in my opinion.
Hope this helps.

Answer 5

www.myheritage.com

try that one