Free sites like Ancestry.com?
I want something that’s as good and hopefully legit as Ancestry but is free
Ancestry.Com isn’t free but your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free.
Ancestry.Com’s real value is the amount of records they have online. Now you have to distinguish between the records they have obtained and put online and their subscriber submitted family trees. Information in family trees on any website, free or fee, must be viewed with caution. They are submitted by folks like you and me. There are errors. You frequently will see different information on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same information on the same people from different subscribers but that doesn’t mean it is accurate. Too many people copy without verifying.
It just takes one person to not have accurate information and 9 other people to copy.
Here is a link with 50 other links to websites, some free, some fee. I feel the ones that only have family trees are not all that useful.
http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm
Don’t expect to find living people in genealogy websites as that is considered an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft.
If you haven’t done so get as much information from living family as possible. 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 just as helpful.
A good 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 of about $3. Just visit their free website, FamilySearch.org, to get the hours for the general public to the nearest Mormon FHC. I have never had them to try and convert me nor have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. A lot of their volunteers are not Mormon.
FamilySearch.org has a pilot program where they are obtaining records and putting them online. You might also find information on it.
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start
Not all records are online but the ones you find will save you time and money.
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