where is the best free database to search ancestry?

Question

where is the best free database to search ancestry?

Answer 1

Clearly the best one and the one with the most records is the National Archives of the country you are looking in as that is where all the records are, however the vast majority of records will not even be indexed so will not be on any database, many that are indexed are paper indexed so again will not be on any website including their own............ then there are commercial and religious websites which have a tiny faction of information that is available and hudreds and thouusands of FH societies, FH groups, private individuals who have worked for years to index or transcribe to enable some to be online and mainly for free................................



If you are starting FH which from your question being very vague suggests you are, then NO website database is where you start...you use your best resource by far which are living family and records that they already have at home which gets you 3-5 generations of YOUR family and not 'they might be' family from a database......... http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhome.htm this will help, lots of advice, lots of good links and some documents.......



ADD: PETER I have no idea what issues you have, but do NOT bring me into any of them

Answer 2

Your are asking a personal preference type question and every researcher has websites they prefer over others. Wendy gave you and interesting and complete

a Ted a very detailed one. I will attempt to make it easier.

There are several excellent free database to search ancestry My preference is

Familysearch.org and the National Archives. However, I usually suggest that people use the computers at public libraries or go to Family History Centers as they have access to several subscription sites and using the computers are free,

The advantage of the Family History Centers is that there is no limit to the amount of time you may stay on the computer and there are volunteers who can assist.

Answer 3

As Number One mentioned, you can click above where it says "Search Y! Answers"; you can follow the path of the top 10, or you can go to your local library and check out any of the genealogy for beginners type of books, many of which list dozens of popular sites, such as www.cyndislist.com.



But, whether you want to search on the net, use books and periodicals, or go straight to the source (courthouses, Census Bureaus, etc.) you need to first start with yourself.



Find your birth certificate; then find the birth/marriage/death certificates of your parents, and their parents, and their parents, and so on.



Where to look depends upon how old you are, your parents were when you were born, etc. My grandparents were born in the U.S. of A. BEFORE the Civil War, and their grandparents about the time of the Revolution, so my searches are different than those folks whose ancestors came through Ellis Island or flew here. That is the thing people seem to miss: everyone's searches will be different. The length of a generation plays a very key part; 10 generations takes me to the Mayflower.



So, start with those documents; figure out when your ancestors came here and from where. Do the background work and you will spend less time spinning your wheels searching needlessly. Once you have done that, check the newspaper archives, historical/genealogical societies & libraries for those places where your ancestors lived. Check local, State, & National Censuses (you need names, dates, places before you do that since the Censuses do not link people to their ancestors). I found my Mom's paternal grandfather at 15 living with another family, working as a blacksmith.



Read a brief history for every place your ancestors lived: an overview gives you a focus, as well as hints as to their religion & politics.



If your ancestors came to America during the Colonial era, sooner or later you will most likely find them in some published book, if no more than brief mention as to wills, probates, etc. If you had ancestors that were famous, or associated with famous persons, you will be able to find quite a lot of info, such as my ancestors from Germanna Colony.



Good luck!

Answer 4

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?" 3 - 14 times a day here. 9 of us top 10 have stock answers. (One of the 10 is retired.) After 2 - 4 of us paste our stock answer, the rest don't bother. All 9 stock answers are well worth reading. All 9 of us 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. Among them (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 - 600,000,000+ entries

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

ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com - Social Security Death Index, 83 million names

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

www.findagrave.com - 53 million 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.

Answer 5

Did you know that genealogy was around BEFORE COMPUTERS??

Genealogy is a collection of distinct, explicit persons, every one of whom has unique facts and documents. Your parents are identified on your birth certificate. A person born in 1872 in Texas did not have a birth (or death) certificate. If a man, he may have a probate file. If a woman, her only record might be her tombstone. Someone who died in Florida in a certain year, will have different documents than one who died in Virginia, 100 yrs before.

The first link in your ancestry is that birth certificate, but each person back in time, is going to be linked in some fashion. Research involves you learning who those persons were, which records may be available for him or her, and putting the puzzle together. It is a process of analysis, then searching.

http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Here is one of many online tutorials on the methods used. Looking for databases, where you can simply type in your name and find your ancestry, is the single biggest error made by new researchers.

Answer 6

There isn't ONE. There are tens of thousands of resources available to genealogists. The best one will be the one that contains information about the ancestor you are working on, and it will be a different for great-grandma Opal and great-great-great grandpa Dougie. In order of quality you want: original documents, transcribed documents, indexes, biographical or historical texts, user-submitted trees (very very very low quality, only use to find better sources).



Resources will vary depending on where and when your ancestor lived, what records they left behind, and what is available for that place/time. Not everything is online and/or free. Since you didn't give us any information to narrow down the best ones for your specific search, we can only provide a few general ones (below).



Ex.: I use Georgia State Archives to locate ancestors residing in Georgia, USA between the colonial period to 1930. If your ancestor lived in England in 1642 this site will be of no use to you.



https://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.censusfinder.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

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

http://www.genuki.org.uk/ (U.K.)

http://www.cyndislist.com/

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.

Offline resources -- Libraries, archives, museums, genealogical societies, Family History Centers, etc. BIG note: FHCs have free access to some of the paid subscription sites.

Answer 7

most of the information you're in seek of, at the instant are not public and a few you ought to instruct a kin relationship (next of kin) to get right of entry to and get. information and databases that are on paper and microfilm do no longer basically look on the internet. maximum kin tree, genuine factors, tax, immigration, census, war provider information (no longer unfastened from NARA and easily despatched to next of kin) are the valuables of an government records, u . s ., state or of commercial business enterprise that produced and keep them. If paper/microfilmed databases look on line then they have been bought from an records, state, u . s ., or enterprise then time and funds has been spent to transcribe or test and upload them for get right of entry to on line, besides as holding servers and internet pages. would you do all that and supply it away for others unfastened? you do no longer state what u . s . you like your Ancestry reseached in so i won't be able to supply you websites i be responsive to of the place volunteers have published indexes and information which would be get right of entry to for unfastened.

Answer 8

In a nutshell the best free site is www.familysearch.org

Answer 9

Why is it that certain people in this category can moan and b***h about other TOP contributors and then when?

Someone speaks out they get reported and their answer removed, how does that work K? You b***h about someone who used to contribute all the time and then she stopped because of nasty emails that was probably down to you to, go on get me banned, you know you want to.

Youre probably wondering what my problem is, well that lady found me some very important information and im so grateful to her, but because of you she wont help anyone else I really need her help now or someone elses but you and maxi think you rule yahoo.