What are good FREE public record search sites?

Question

I'm trying to do a Genealogy search and I need to find just some basics, like the names on my Great Grandfather's birth cirtificate ect. where can I find these public records for,actually, free online. I know it's all public record, and that's why I refuse to pay some stupid 39.99 a month. Where can I find these records online for FREE ? Thanks :)

Answer 1

Public record does not equate with ONLINE.  And birth certificates (depending on the year) are not public records either.

Sorry.. what you "know" is not accurate.

Answer 2

This is an excellent site and has been very helpful to me.  If you find what you are looking for you can download to your computer for your personal genealogy documentation.  There is no charge for this but you may not find everyone.  In just a few minutes on the site I found death certificates of 6 siblings of 10 from one family.  Learned a lot from them too!

Someone else answered you with this site also so word is getting around about it.

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/reco...

Answer 3

http://www.familysearch.org/

Census Records for UK and US 1880, 1881

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/reco...

Migration, Census, Vital Records, etc. The list keeps growing. You can also register and be a part of an extraction program where you are sent a batch of digital copies of a vital records and you extract the info from them and send it back. Its free and you do it at your leisure.

Answer 4

http://www.crimcheck.com. Easy to use and free!

Answer 5

Go to the library and you can use that same $39.99 site for free. While you're there, you can also search lots of local records in your area (where I'm assuming your family may have lived) to find things like obituaries, engagement and marriage announcements, maps of the area to show where people lived, biographies of people who lived in your area (even the common ones...not just the rich and famous). Libraries are great places to do research...especially in the summer when it's too hot to be outside and too boring watching TV.

Answer 6

Here you go!

http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_select.a...

Stop and think, Ma'am. If you could get a 3-course meal delivered to your door every night, for FREE, all of the restaurants in town would go out of business. By the same token, if you could get all records from all states for free, Ancestry would go out of business. The $159 a year I pay works out to $13.25 a month, which is less than our Satellite TV bill and twice as interesting.

Some hobbies are expensive; 12-meter yacht racing, collecting first editions and wine tasting, for instance. $13.25 is about what I spend on a bottle of wine when we have company, and it only lasts the night. A month's worth of Ancestry costs the same. By that standard it isn't expensive.

You can look at public records for free, except recent birth, death and marriages. You have to fly to the county, wait for the courthouse to open and look at them 9 - 5. Then you either fly home or spend the night in a hotel. Pack a lunch or eat in a restaurant. Ancestry is selling convenience.

The link I gave you is for some counties and some years in West Virginia. Missouri has a digital archive. Preble County Ohio does. All three are free, funded by taxpayers. Some US Gen Web county sites have some B/M/D records for some time periods. If you hunt state by state and county by county for "Death Records", "Marriage Records" and "Birth Records" you may find some you can use. It is a long and frustrating search.

Answer 7

To find info on a birth certificate you need to order a copy which varies.  Also the mormon church has a great free search site:

LDS

       http://www.familysearch.org/

Also you might try posting your info on Roots Web (free) to see if anyone might have info on your family which besides birth certificates the Census reports are full of info.  

If you would like me to do a search I will be happy to. Email at: mapgare@san rr.com.  Back to your question, most sites are there to make a profit so yes you do pay sooner or later. Except the LDS. Good luck.

Answer 8

here u go!

http://www.ancestorhunt.com/

http://surnamesupersearch.com/

there are more sites. hope i helped =p