Ancestry.com is not the answer. I am seeking a agency that will assist with ancestry research at no cost.?

Question

I have paid for subscriptions to Ancestry.com for two years. They do not provide any assistance in locating family information. My situation is somewhat strange. For example my father (Charles Howard) married my mother (Sadie) under the last name Howard. However all of his brother, sisters and parents apparently had the last name Gattis. My grandmother, on my fathers side is name Sudie Gattis. All I could locate was her information in the 1930 Census however my father had not been born. I found his brothers and sisters (7 ??) listed. Because my father and mother divorced when I was a small child and my mother moved to MI I have never had any contact with my fathers side of the family. My faher was killed in a car accident in 1978. I attended his funeral and met his other family and many family members. At that time I was only 18. I am now 48 and want to know more about my roots.

My oldest brother - Artis Ervin Howard died between 1988-89 in North Carolina, Burlington

Answer 1

The volunteers at your local Family History Center (In the LDS church) might help you, but, as the other person said, they won't do the work for you. They will point you to some likely places to dig and loan you a shovel.

Answer 2

There isn't any formal "free" genealogy service that will help you. Genealogy is set up as a personal research hobby and while there are lots of volunteers to help point you in the right direction, it's still a personal research project.

I'm in Michigan and know most of the resources in this state quite intimately. On that side of the family I can easily help you. You don't mention where your father lived, though. It's possible there are people on this board who live in that area and can help you find the records that you need.

The other side to it is that if you're looking for people who are alive, it gets dicey. We have to respect their privacy and aren't allowed to research living people. I can suggest you snoop around the Melissadata site to find information on them, but you'll have to do the introductions.

If we can get a better idea of what you've found and what you're hoping to find, we would be more than happy to help you find it.

Answer 3

Nobody is going to do YOUR research for free.

Answer 4

A few topics that affect what you find... reputable online sources will not publish information concerning live persons, and your research is much at the beginning point.  You might already know that the government limits the census, to not being open until 72 yrs (100 yrs in the UK).  

It also is important to recognize that genealogy is NOT always going to be online. I suspect that birth/ death certificates will have some information, however those are both restricted to certain persons, and they are not free.

Not meaning to be hostile in any way, but sometimes the answer is in what you expect.  Genealogy is like any other hobby that you might choose.. some is free, some is not.

Since dad is not living, my advice is that you need his birth and death certificates. Having a different surname suggests a different husband and/or father.  It appears that Gattis is grandma's married name, not her maiden name. Her death cert should also have the name(s) of her parents.

Please take some time to post questions here. We are free, and if we cannot get the answer, we normally will help you as to where you can locate it.

Answer 5

Have you posted a query on rootsweb.com?

It's free.

Perhaps a relative, or someone researching the same family, will respond to your request for info.

Ancestry also has a message board.

Answer 6

I am not saying anything that the others have already pointed out but you must understand that money is what makes the world go 'round. I honestly hope you're not expecting someone to just do all this research for you and you don't have to pay them. You could find some people who'd volunteer the time, but they usually represent a local genealogy society or other non-profit group and have a right to expect some sort of donation from you. I've worked in archives for a while now and the thing that drives us crazy is people who come up to us expecting to push a magic button and have everything put in front of them. Caring for records costs money. Transferring these records onto microfilm costs money. Scanning, storing and putting online these records costs a boatload of money. And I am not even talking about the man hours associated with digging up these records or the costs of copying things and sending them out.

Anyways, just like fixing a car, the cheapest way to do genealogy is to do it for yourself. Consider Ancestry not as the mechanic, but as the auto parts store that allows you to work on things on your own.

Answer 7

You are like me when I started out, and I'm young and only have done this for a year, I found out Ancestry and all these sites and people do not have my family's information, they have records they may help you with information you're looking for, but they are not the source to knowing all of your family history.

I had to learn that, I had to learn that all the records have been indexed and placed online for you to view for a fee. They are not hear to tell you everything you need to know about your family history, it's simply a site filled with all kinds of records that may contain information about your family.

Because HUMANS have indexed these records (census, birth/marriage/death...etc.) mistakes haven been and will be made, nothing is accurate. I was looking for my ggg gm Rosetta Hughes in 1900, someone at Ancestry indexed her name as Poietta Shigbet. So be cautious with names, sometimes the records themselves have inaccuracies, the Hughes surname in one census has been spelled Huger.

Heritage Quest via www.caagri.org has census records from 1790-1930 (1830-50 are missing, and 1930 is partial), you are free to search names and browse census records on that site for free, if you register (for free) with caagri. Again, mistakes have been made, HQ has another ggg gm listed as White, when the census record clearly has "B" for Black.

Don't give up, I learned that with familysearchlab, I gave up on it because they didn't have records on people I was looking for, but I went back and they've added and updated records, and it's my best friend now. Go to search.labs.familysearch.org, they have death, marriage, and birth records, they also have 1880 and 1900 census records, they are still indexing, so give it time if you don't see what you're looking for.

Searching Ancestry right now, I found a North Carolina Death Record of a Artis Ervin Howard in Almanace, North Carolina in 1988. There is also a North Carolina Divorce Record of Charles and Sadie.

Records can be hard to find, I'm having a hard time looking for my ggg gm in the 1920 and '30 census, but I found a death index stating she died in 1931. You have to remember it's not the fault of Ancestry, I understand they are human and don't have everything, I don't have a paid subscription to ancestry, and I found plenty of info, so I don't want to subscribe unless it's necessary.

I don't like going with the "All I have" phrase, I like to think, "I have something", it may not be a lot, but it's something. Ancestry right now, until June 19th, offer free viewing to newspapers, so maybe you can find an Obit about your dad, I found Obits of a great great grand aunt and her children.