No, I don't have one best free genealogy site but I have many that are free and very helpful in researching your ancestors. The following is a basic plan for a beginner in the United States to start researching their ancestry.
First, start by asking all your living relatives about family history and get any documents or pictures they are willing to share with you for your files. You can photocopy or scan these and return them to their owner. Your public library will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you can use Heritage Quest at home.
Another free online resource is U.S. GenWeb at: http://www.usgenweb.org/ they have a page for every state and everything is free. Then there is Rootsweb.com, a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames and leave queries on the message boards. Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention FamilySearch.org they have many free online records and are digitizing more every day, all free. Their website is: http://www.familysearch.org/
Also, be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at: http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills at: http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinear%E2%80%A6
Also, don’t forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com/ which has a lot of links for both free and paid sites.
I’m sure I could come up with a lot more but that should keep you busy for a while and I think you question was how to find family history for free…there should be lots of family history to be found for free with all these websites.
It probably won't all be on one place. You need to start with your local library and find out if they have a genealogy section. Don't expect your family history to be all prepared unless some family member, perhaps an aunt or a distant cousin you have never met, has already done it and had it published or put online.
A good free source is a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their FHCs can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.
I have never had them to try and convert me or have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. Just visit their free website, FamilySeach.org, to get the hours for the general public to the nearest Mormon Family History Center.
First get as much information from living family as possible. Interview your senior members and tape them if they will let you. I won't say that they won't be wrong on some things but often times they tell you stories of things in the past that you won't write down but in the stories can be clues that will be valuable later on.
Find out if any has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can be helpful.
Now as far as government office the only thing that really comes to mind is the National Archives. I have a friend whose mother came from Calabria and father from Sicily and she said she has found a lot of information on her family there. Ellis Island wouldn't have helped as the Italians in our part of the world came in through Galveston and New Orleans. She said when you first go there you go through a lot of rigmarole to get signed up and get a name tag. Whenever you go back you just show your name tag. They have volunteers there to help.
As far as websites, I feel the best is Ancestry.Com for the amount of records they have online. Still you must distinguish between their subscriber submitted family trees and their original source records. Family Trees on any website, free or one to which you have to pay to subscribe, must be viewed with caution. They are not submitted by some expert working for the websites but by folks like you and me. You frequently will see different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same info on the same people from different subscribers, but that doesn't mean it is accurate. Too many people copy without verifying. If you disagree with information a subscriber has on your family, the owners of the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscriber. Good genealogy means good documentation whether on the web or in a published book. Someone else's URL is not good documentation.
If you find Ancestry.Com too pricey, your public library might have a subscription you can use for free. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have lots of military enlistment and draft records as well as many immigration and some land records. They have indexes to vital records of many U.S. states.
They have transcribed the records but you can view the original images. There are errors in their transcriptions,particularly censuses, but when you view the originals you will have pity on the transcriber.
Here is a link with links to many websites some free, some not. The ones that only have family trees are not worth a lot of chicken droppings if you want a good accurate family tree.
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No, I don't have one best free genealogy site but I have many that are free and very helpful in researching your ancestors. The following is a basic plan for a beginner in the United States to start researching their ancestry.
First, start by asking all your living relatives about family history and get any documents or pictures they are willing to share with you for your files. You can photocopy or scan these and return them to their owner. Your public library will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you can use Heritage Quest at home.
Another free online resource is U.S. GenWeb at: http://www.usgenweb.org/ they have a page for every state and everything is free. Then there is Rootsweb.com, a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames and leave queries on the message boards. Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention FamilySearch.org they have many free online records and are digitizing more every day, all free. Their website is: http://www.familysearch.org/
Also, be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at: http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills at: http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinear%E2%80%A6
Also, don’t forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com/ which has a lot of links for both free and paid sites.
I’m sure I could come up with a lot more but that should keep you busy for a while and I think you question was how to find family history for free…there should be lots of family history to be found for free with all these websites.
It probably won't all be on one place. You need to start with your local library and find out if they have a genealogy section. Don't expect your family history to be all prepared unless some family member, perhaps an aunt or a distant cousin you have never met, has already done it and had it published or put online.
A good free source is a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their FHCs can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.
I have never had them to try and convert me or have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. Just visit their free website, FamilySeach.org, to get the hours for the general public to the nearest Mormon Family History Center.
First get as much information from living family as possible. Interview your senior members and tape them if they will let you. I won't say that they won't be wrong on some things but often times they tell you stories of things in the past that you won't write down but in the stories can be clues that will be valuable later on.
Find out if any has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can be helpful.
Now as far as government office the only thing that really comes to mind is the National Archives. I have a friend whose mother came from Calabria and father from Sicily and she said she has found a lot of information on her family there. Ellis Island wouldn't have helped as the Italians in our part of the world came in through Galveston and New Orleans. She said when you first go there you go through a lot of rigmarole to get signed up and get a name tag. Whenever you go back you just show your name tag. They have volunteers there to help.
As far as websites, I feel the best is Ancestry.Com for the amount of records they have online. Still you must distinguish between their subscriber submitted family trees and their original source records. Family Trees on any website, free or one to which you have to pay to subscribe, must be viewed with caution. They are not submitted by some expert working for the websites but by folks like you and me. You frequently will see different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same info on the same people from different subscribers, but that doesn't mean it is accurate. Too many people copy without verifying. If you disagree with information a subscriber has on your family, the owners of the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscriber. Good genealogy means good documentation whether on the web or in a published book. Someone else's URL is not good documentation.
If you find Ancestry.Com too pricey, your public library might have a subscription you can use for free. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They have lots of military enlistment and draft records as well as many immigration and some land records. They have indexes to vital records of many U.S. states.
They have transcribed the records but you can view the original images. There are errors in their transcriptions,particularly censuses, but when you view the originals you will have pity on the transcriber.
Here is a link with links to many websites some free, some not. The ones that only have family trees are not worth a lot of chicken droppings if you want a good accurate family tree.
http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008....