Do free family tree websites work?

Question

I think that would be cool if you didn't have to pay to know your family history.

Answer 1

Best off typing your family name into google. Loads of people would have done the hard work already and put it on net.

Answer 2

It is according to what you are looking for.  If you are looking to put a name in and up pops your family tree, you probably will be disappointed.

The family trees are not submitted by experts that are employed by the websites but by folks like you and me and there are mistakes.  Don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or the ones to whom you pay a membership fee.  They are subscriber submitted.  Even when you see the same info on the same people from many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.

I feel, Ancestry.Com, is the best for the total records it has online.  They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet.

They have military records, immigration records and indexes to vital records of many states.   If you find it too pricey, your public library might have a subscription to it you can use.  

Not everything is online.  Not by a long shot.

Anytime you are really serious about researching your family history, there are lots of good people on this board that can give you some great tips and advice. Just ask.  However, it takes work and not all of it will be entirely free.

Answer 3

They work up to a point. If you have an unusual name they can be helpful. If your name is Smith or Jones, forget it.

Answer 4

Ancestry.com is the biggest and best. Here's a money-saving tip: join it for a short amount of time. You can do some research, compile your data, and then leave without paying a lot of money.

Answer 5

They vary. There are about 400,000 of them. About 200,000 are above average, for free family tree web sites, and about 200,000 are below average. That is the nature of averages, if you haven't taken algebra yet, not a sweeping, arrogant  judgement.

You have to look at other people's sources, which you have to do onthe fee sites, too. I know a free web site with over 500 million entries.  (RWWC, for those of you who are curious). There are over 35,000 white people born in Ohio between 1747 and 1787 there, among the 500+ million. The first European settlement in Ohio was Marietta, founded in 1788.

The free data is only as good as the volunteers who contribute it. If you'd like to contribute to the free data on the Internet, write, I know a place that could use you. It would take you a couple of hours a month.