Have you ever found anything in the internet doing your genealogical research?

Question

How to start a good research?

2- All the certificates of birth are of free consultation?
3- Is the site ancestry free?
i tried familysearch but i found nothing.
4-A person that his ancestor left italy before it became italy cant be considered italian?
As a prussian that left the region before it became Germany?
5- All people that left Europe in the 19 and 20 centuries were holding a passport?
Where are those traces about those passports in the country of origin?
6- Was Ellis Island the only place of arrival in the United States?
Then people moved by themselves to other states?
7-What are the kind of documents archives in Spain Italy and Portugal keep in terms of genealogy?

I visited an archive in Portugal, it's in English but no place to do genealogical researches.
It's called Arquivo distrital.

I'm trying by the internet but i'm finding nothing about any branch of my family.

Thanks.

Answer 1

1. Please visit my blog http://www.everymangenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/11/omg-where-do-i-begin.html to get some good advice on starting your search. Also visit FamilySearch.org's and Ancestry.com's learning centers so you can learn how to use their sites effectively.

2. Birth certificates aren't free.

3. Ancestry.com has a free option when you register a guest account where you can build a tree, use the message boards and use a small portion (700 of several thousand) of their databases. If you go to their Facebook page, there are volunteers that will do lookups for you on the paid info.

4. A person who's ancestor is from another country can't be considered of that country no matter if the country existed or not. You are your own nationality/ethnicity and your ancestors from other countries are another. If the ancestor left Italy/Germany before the country was formed, it is true they are not Italian/German... but such distinction is foggy at best.

5. Not everyone had a passport. It depended on the rules of their country and where they were going.

6. No, Ellis Island is not the only place of arrival. Their are border crossings all over the US on both sides of the country and from Canada and Mexico as well.

7. Each country has it's own genealogical efforts and most of them are on a local level. Some documents have been lost forever to neglect and war... your question was a bit broad for a better answer.



As for not finding anything on your family, I wonder how long you have been at this and encourage you to keep trying to build your skill.

Answer 2

6, Go back in time and there were many cities in the U.S. that were ports of arrival. Many of the Italians in my part of Texas came through Galveston and New Orleans. I had ancestors that came in through New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston. Other ports were Boston,Philadelphia, Baltimore,San Francisco to name a few.

1. No way are all birth certificates on line.

2. Most of records online came from Ancestry.Com Family trees on their website or any other website are not records.

4. I have ancestor and on the census it shows place of birth Prussia. I have noticed in censuses people were born in Baden, Saxony, Bavaria and many of the old German states. It wasn't until 1871 that the Hohenzollerns united all of the German states under their rule. Until then Prussia was only part of Germany. Some of Prussia included Poland.

5. Don't know about passports. Know that in various times throughout the 19th century when the husband and father was naturalized his wife and children were automatically naturalized.

3 Don't expect to find living people in genealogy websites. That can be an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft.

You don't start your family history by using the internet.

Answer 3

The most information that I have ever gotten was from the Mormon website and it's completely free. www.familysearch.org. Also, on ancestry.com, I go and look at other members family trees. That can be very helpful too.