What website is the closest to FREE for searching your ancestry?
There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. I have put links to some huge ones, 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 link.
http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html
It has links, plus tips and hints for each of these sites:
http://www.cyndislist.com
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi
http://www.rootsweb.com/
http://www.usgenweb.net
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
http://find.person.superpages.com/
http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi
http://www.tedpack.org/goodpost.html
http://www.genforum.com
http://boards.ancestry.com/
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
I used to put short tips in the stock answer. Now Y!A limits the size of an answer. You’ll need the hints.
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One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life–A Story of Race and Family Secrets $10.00 Two months before he died of cancer, renowned literary critic Anatole Broyard called his grown son and daughter to his side, intending to reveal a secret he had kept all their lives and most of his own: he was black. But even as he lay dying, the truth was too difficult for him to share, and it was his wife who told Bliss that her WASPy, privileged Connecticut childhood had come at a price. Ever… |
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Family History Search Discover The Secrets To Finding Family You Never Knew You Had. Learn how to find family members using online resources and more…. |
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Genealogy Online for Dummies $24.99 Thanks to the Internet, just about anybody can become a crack genealogist. Gone are the days of hunkering down with dusty old tomes in forbidding archives and excruciatingly slow snail-mail correspondence with foreign officials and distant relations. Also gone are the days of traveling thousands of miles to track down a lead on an elusive ancestor. Now, with a few clicks of the mouse you can excha… |
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Finding Your African-American Ancestors $10.9 Although the search for African American ancestry prior to the Civil War is challenging, the difficulties are not always insurmountable. Finding Your African American Ancestors takes you through your ancestors` transition from slavery to free… |
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The Noble Ancestry $15.99 The Noble Ancestry |
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In Search of Identity $17.75 The distinguished scholar examines the origins and history of African-American ancestry as he profiles nineteen noted African Americans–Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier, and others–and illuminates their individual family sagas throughout U.S. history, the tragedy of slavery, and their African roots. 50,000 first printing. |
Tags: family, Genealogy, history, how to search ancestry for free, reference, research
