I need help learning about my ancestors.?

Question

I need help learning about my ancestors.?

Answer 1

This is the 3-4th time today this question has been asked, The answer is in the Answer category.

But since people seem unable to actually research an answer, try Family.search.org

Answer 2

Stop. Back up a bit. Websites aren't the best place to start and none will be worth a lick without a good research process. There are tens of thousands of free websites useful to genealogists. Which one is useful for the particular ancestor you're working on at the time will depend on where and when they lived, what records they left behind, and where those records are today. Which means it will vary for every ancestor and a combination works better. It wouldn't do us any good to send you over to Georgia's Virtual Vault - which is awesome for Antebellum ancestor in Georgia - if your ancestor lived in India circa 1932. Also, most free sites are transcriptions, indexes, instructions, and small collections, not warehouses of original records.



Keep it simple. Build a good foundation by following a systematic research process:



1. Interview your living relatives. But don't take what they say as gospel truth. Sometimes stories get mixed up.

2. Examine your documents and those of relatives that will allow it.

3. Prepare for research by learning about basic genealogy, genealogy specific to your known ancestors. What records were kept when and where and where can you find them today?

4. Organize your data. Free software is available. Most of us caution against storing your tree online.

5. Research one document at time for one generation at a time, one ancestor at a time. Record only facts found in the documents.



A few hints for making good use of resources: Because of privacy laws and etiquette standards, you'll want to get back 70-100 years before hopping on the internet or trying to order records. AVOID user-submitted or prepared trees/pedigrees except where they have sources cited, and go to the sources. Seeing the same information multiple times in trees does not mean it's more accurate, just that it got copied a lot. Indexes and transcriptions are better than trees but still likely to have more errors. Use these to get you to the original source. Try to find and work with original documents or images as exclusively as possible. Understanding how each type of record was collected and prepared and what that means is an invaluable tool for assessing the information. Not everything is online and/or free, But, you can get a great running start for free.



Some helpful starting places (some may not work for your ancestors, but they give you an idea of what to look for that is time/place appropriate for your ancestors):

http://www.cyndislist.com/ (START with How To and Genealogical Standards and Guidelines, they also have guides and links for specific places)

https://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.censusfinder.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

http://www.deathindexes.com/ (U.S.)

GENUKI, FreeCen, FreeBMD, and FreeReg (U.K.)

Here -- Many of us have resources or knowledge specific to certain documents, times, places, and groups.

Google -- Look for local libraries, archives, agencies, and GenWebs, or websites similar to above for your ancestor's country.

Offline -- Libraries, archives, museums, church records, genealogical societies, Family History Centers (operated by the Mormons), etc. BIG note: FHCs and some libraries have FREE access to some of the paid subscription sites like Ancestry.com and librarians or volunteers that are happy to help.

Answer 3

Cassandr...Just click about where it says "Search Y! Answers". This particular query has been asked hundreds of times, with so many answers. In addition, Ted Pack, the Leader, has his own website with many more hints/links.



There is www.cyndislist.com, www.familysearch.org, and many others.



But, don't use them until you have established at a very minimum 3 generations of ancestors; names are misleading and people tend to "copy and paste"; you need "proof", such as birth/marriage/death certificates.

Answer 4

You never start your learning with websites you start with you and your own records which are at home and in the homes of your living relations...your own birth cert proves you and your parents, their marriage cert proves them and their parents or at least their fathers, so 2 records and you have proved and connected 3 generations, they are free and start your foundation to your tree and you can get back several generations doing this http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhome.htm download free FH software from the links page....... when you have done this you will have knowledge of who to look for and where they are and more importantly you will be working from a strong foundation and know how to research and more importantly prove...... the links page then has some more links to help you BUT websites are only a tiny part of research, they are a help nothing more and will not research your ancestry simply as all your ancestors records are NOT online, so they are only a clue about where to look regardless if you pay or not..............

Answer 5

Umm...Something love-inspiring and completely unexpected.

Answer 6

You should look at the resolved questions. Either browse them or use the advanced search at least three times, for the words



Free family tree

free family history

free ancestry



People ask the same basic question, "How can I find my family tree, for free?" 4 - 14 times a day here. All of us top 10 have stock answers. After 2 - 4 of us paste our stock answer, the rest don't bother. All the stock answers are well worth reading. All of us top 10 are warm, wise, witty, well-read and, above all, devilishly handsome. We have quite a bit of overlap on our favorite links, but we emphasize different aspects of the hunt in our advice.



Here is my stock answer:



There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites, but



1) They don't pay Google to come up in first place. You have to pay attention to those words, "Ads" in VERY small type, and ignore those results.



2) Some of the free ones have ads, which ask you for a name, then take you to a pay site. You have to pay attention to the form.



In either case, if you don't pay attention, you'll end up on one of those sites where the search is free, but seeing the results costs you money. They are dishonest, in my opinion, but they didn't ask my opinion.



3) With very rare exception, all the free sites do is give you data to let you research your tree. They won't show you your tree. The exception is when someone, like your great-aunt, has done the work and uploaded it.



Among those free sites (without http://)



www.cyndislist.com - 250,000 links, all categorized.

www.familysearch.org - The Mormons. Gazillions of records.

wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com - Roots Web World Connect - 700,000,000+ entries

usgenweb.org - Sites for every county in every state in the USA

vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/ - California Death Index, 9,366,786 records

www.findagrave.com - tens of millions of records

genforum.genealogy.com - Query boards for every county in every state, and thousands of surnames.

boards.ancestry.com - The other Query board site; counties and surnames too.

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com Roots Web Mailing List Archive - Over 30 million messages



I have a page with real links to all of those, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first.



If you didn't mention a country, and you didn't go into Yahoo! by one of their international sub-sites, 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 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 main link.



http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html



That page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites, for a dozen huge free sites. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look".



You will need the tips. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, or they mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library. I watched the mistakes beginners made. The query forms on the sites are tricky.



If you've read this far,

And you are still interested

And your ancestors were in the USA by 1930

And you know the names of at least two people (husband and wife, parent and child) who were living in the same house in 1930

I'll look for them in the 1930 census to give you a start.

Write to me via my profile.