(Edit) I have corrected one of mylinks.
The only way to do family history is research and getting documentation. Documentation is the meat of genealogy. Trying to find people to build your family tree isn't a way to get a good verifiable family tree. There are lots of websites. You have to differentiate between original source records and subscriber submitted family trees.
Information in family trees on ANY website must be viewed as clues only as to where to get the documentation. I have been giving this warning for
about 3 years on this board. Too many people have heard you can find your family tree or members of your family in family trees on the internet. The internet has been a blessing for genealogy in many ways but it has multipled errors in genealogy because of online family trees.
Most of the trees are not documented and if they are documented they are poorly documented. You will frequently see different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same information on the same people from different subscribers. Oh that must mean its right! No, it doesn't. People are copying. A lot of people think it is important to see how many names they can get in their family tree and aren't concerned with a tree that can be verified. Whether it is on the web or in a published book you must always look for the documentation.
If you disagree with something someone has posted on a family member, the owners of the websites will tel you that is between you and the other subscriber.
One of my great grandfathers had a son, grandson, brother and nephew named Zachariah Berry Jackson. I am interested in making contact
with family of the brother and nephew. So I put his name in under family trees. I found my entry and my niece's entry on my great grandfather's brother and son. But there is one entry on them I was unfamiliar with the subscriber. My great grandfather's son was married 3 times as he was widowed twice. The subscriber didn't have his first wife but it showed he married his second wife who was a sister of the first in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. For a farmer in Gonzales County, Texas to go all the way to New Jersey in 1891 to marry her she must have been a wonderful prize.
Of course I already had a record where he married her in Gonzales County in 1891.
Then guess what else I found. Me, my younger sister and my brother-in-law are all dead. It didn't give a date, but we died in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. The only time my sister and I were ever in New Jersey is when our family drove through there in 1957 coming back from New York. I can't believe we have been dead for 51 years.
This person has family members on both sides of my family marrying and dying in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. A good part of my ancestry is southern American colonial with some exceptions and those exceptions came into the country through southern ports.
I had a great great grandmother named Emaline Dumas and she was the daughter of a Stephen Dumas. Oral history is she had a twin sister named Eveline.
She married my great great grandfather whose name was Thomas Lewis. However, it appears Stephen's brother Azariah also had an Emaline and Eveline. I have seen trees showing Thomas married Eveline which came from an old book.
Then I have seen numerous trees showing my Emaline was the daughter of Azariah and that she had a previous marriage to Calvin Dumas. Azariah's Emaline that married Calvin Dumas died before 1850. My Emaline, the daughter of Stephen died November 1888. All this has been enhanced by the copiest. We have a copy of a Bible Record of her death and she is on the 1880 census of Washington County, Texas. Hers and Thomas' youngest son was Stephen Dumas Lewis.
One website, Genealogy.Com, encourages people or at least they use to to merge other people's trees into yours. That is sloppy genealogy.
Ancestry.Com, I feel is the absolute best for the total amount of original source records online. They will save you a lot of money traveling all other the country to courthouses and libraries. Still be careful about info in their family trees, particularly their One World Tree program. If you find Ancestry.Com too pricey, your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free.
Here are a couple of links to information on various websites, some free and some not.
http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm
http://www.cyndislist.com/
Tracing your surname is not the best way to do genealogy. Not everyone with the same surname shares the same root person of their surname with others with the same surname. That is why people get taken in by surname product peddlers like so called "family crest."
I might mention that a good free 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.
They won't try to convert you at least they haven't done so to me or anyone else I know that has used their resources/
A friend of mine of Italian background has found lots of info on her family at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. She said when you first go there you go through a lot of rigamarole to get signed up and a name tag. Anytime you go back you just show your name tag and you are in.
They have volunteers there that will help you.