Are there any legit free ancestory finding websites?

Question

Are there any legit free ancestory finding websites?

Answer 1

The following web sites make public data transcribed by volunteers free to the general public:

http://usgenweb.org

http://www.freecen.org.uk

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com

Answer 2

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. I have links to some huge ones, below, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first.

If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it.

If you are in the USA,

AND most of your ancestors were in the USA,

AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access,

AND you are white

Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly. Many young people stop reading here and pick another hobby.

No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late.

You won't find living people on genealogy sites. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth.

Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources. Cross-check and verify.

So much for the warnings. Here is the main link.

http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html

It has links, plus tips and hints on how to use them, for a dozen huge free sites. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my home site gets around two problems. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look".

Answer 3

rootsweb.com and familysearch.org are free.

Answer 4

There are lots of websites. FamilySearch.org and Rootweb are 2 good free sites, but I don't think they have as many records online as Ancestry.Com.   It is according to what you are looking for. Some have family trees of which you should be cautious.  Some have message board and mailing lists and some have records.

Ancestry.Com has all of it. 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 through 1901.  They have military records, immigrations records and indexes to vital records of many states.  If it is too pricey, your public library might have a subscription to it.

Just be very careful about taking as absolute fact everything you see in their family trees or family trees of ANY website, free or not free.  They are subscriber submitted(by folks like you and me)  and they are mostly not documented or poorly documented.  You might see different info from different subscribers on the same people.  Then you will see repeatedly the same info from different subscribers on the same people but that is no guarantee at all it is correct.  A lot of people copy without verifying. The information should only be used as clues as to where to get the documentation.  

Don't expect to find everything online.  Good genealogy means starting with yourself and working back one generation at a time, not copying someone else's tree.  You should document as you go back.  This takes a great deal of time and effort.  The records Ancestry.Com has (they have original images on much of their records) will save you some traveling, going to courthouses, cemeteries and libraries through the country.

Cyndi'sList.com is a website with links to many websites helpful to genealogist.  You might check it out.

Answer 5

When I start researching a new family line I go to these pages:

www.familysearch.org

www.gencircles.com

www.rootsweb.com

www.usgenweb.com

www.census-online.com/links/

www.findagrave.com/

www.google.com