What website builds a family tree for you?

Question

Like on ancestry.com you have to pay to due your own work, i think anyone who does that is a fool, so what website builds your family tree for a fee, or do i have to pay to search through free public records, it just sounds like a brick wall because you have to enter the name to search for records, well I dont know there names so how would i even start, hell the website cant even find me so why would i drop a bunch of cash for nothing, it just sounds like a scam and I would think that there are companys that do it for you

Answer 1

You can hire a genealogist. Expect to pay $40 - $60 an hour, and for it to take him/her 100 hours or so, if you are a white non-hispanic American with long, deep roots in this country. For that he/she should be able to get back to 1850 on most of your lines, maybe.



It is scholarly work. You can buy term papers on-line because an essay "The Use of Metaphor in Moby Dick" that got an "A" at Beloit Jr. College may not have been seen in Pocatello. However, everyone's family tree is different. I could sell you mine for $50, just like I could sell you my term paper on Moby Dick, but you'd have to explain to people why your name was "Ted Pack" and you were born in California. Your mom and dad's names would be wrong, too.



That sort of research can't be done by a computer, so there can't be a web site that does it for you. All you can hope to find is a web site offering to do research for "N" dollars per hour. Anyone guaranteeing results is like a fishing guide guaranteeing your limit of 28-inch rainbows - he is lying or crooked. Genealogy is like fly fishing; sometimes you land 28-inch rainbows and sometimes you don't.





> Like on ancestry.com you have to pay to due [do] your own work, i [capital I] think anyone who does that is a fool



If I had $5,000 to spare I'd invest it in old whiskey and young women, not dead ancestors. I know when to use "do" and when to use "due", and when to capitalize, too.





> the website cant [can’t] even find me



It shouldn't. You are alive. If you could find your mother's maiden name and your birthday, so could identity thieves.





> well I dont [don't] know there [their] names



If you were adopted and your records sealed, you can't do genealogy. If you were born without fingers you couldn't tie your own trout flies. Blind people can't be photographers. Not all people can do all hobbies.





> do i [capital I] have to pay to search through free public records,



No. Fly to the courthouse, check into a motel, show up at 9, wait for the clerk to notice you, don the special white "Archivist " gloves, blow the dust off and start at on page 1. Your ancestors will be on page 412, like as not. You'll find them 4 days later. Ask the clerk for restaurant advice. Be polite or she'll send you to a bad one.



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God in heaven, kid, were you TRYING to offend everyone in the genealogy universe? Don't they teach spelling and grammar these days? Were you born stupid, or did someone hit you in the head too many times at football practice the day you forgot your helmet?



You are ignorant of genealogy and the world, you didn't scan the resolved questions and you made so many spelling and grammar mistakes your rant is painful to read. Go away. You are REALLY annoying your betters.



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Added later:



One of the benefits of a liberal education and a decent vocabulary is that I can insult you, you lowly cretin clotpoll, and not get it asterisked out, while you can't insult me. Neener, neener, neener.



Three thumbs up in 49 minutes and counting. Guess who has the sympathy of the masses - the warm, wise, witty and devilishly handsome masses?

Answer 2

Strangely enough there are very many thousands of 'fools' all over the world (in fact I am one of them) that are very happy with the service that Ancestry provides.



Maybe you should find out a little bit about how genealogy works before you start ranting on about it.



If you want someone to research your tree without any effort from yourself I suggest that you hire a professional genealogist. You'll need plenty of money though because they will charge you many times more than what you would pay by subscribing to an online site.

Answer 3

Friendly advice..

your approach is completely working AGAINST you. When YOU FIND THE RECORDS, you know if they are accurate. If you are expecting to find records of yourself, you are risking id theft. Reputable genealogy sites DO NOT CONTAIN records of living persons, for this reason.

So, how do you know the names? YOU use the records that you have personally.. and you build one step at a time. If you verify your own birth certificate..you now have the names of your parents, and their applicable dates. Their birth certificates connect you to THEIR parents. You build a proven "chain" from one generation back to the next. As you go along, you learn what documents will apply to your individual person(s).

That is how it works.

I am going to put this as politely as possible.. If you have not done this, it would be much wiser to take advise from those who have. The REALITY is that by being inexperienced.. you leave yourself open to the "scams". It is MORE RELIABLE to do your research and know that it is correct.

Answer 4

Nothing is for free, not really.



But a great free start is http://familysearch.org

Download PAF, check out the tutorials, and the database. OPERATIVE WORDS HERE: check out the tutorials. Genealogy is a process, not a product.



http://www.rootsweb.com is also free to check out databases and message boards.



When you're ready, buy a good genealogical program --- one that works on your computer. I subscribe to Ancestry.com, but I don't like to keep my work locked up on someone else's database.



Short answer: if someone else other than a professional genealogist builds a family tree for you, it probably isn't your family tree.



As for finding records, the paid sites are FAR cheaper than spending your life traveling to church and court basements searching page-by-page.

Answer 5

Your family tree begins with you, goes back through your parents to your grandparents, to your great-grandparents, etc. as far back as there are records to support the information. If you do not want to do all that work for yourself, then you will have to hire a professional genealogist to do the work for you, and you will still have to supply some information for that person to go on.

Most of us who are doing family history research do not find this 'work'. It is fun, it is interesting. It has lead me to cousins I never knew before. It has lead me to discoveries about my ancestors that were never even hinted at by other family members. It has lead me to look at history in a new way, when I can place my ancestors in times and places when historical events were occuring.

Answer 6

Websites don't build a family tree. The subscribers submit their family trees to websites.

Some are well researched and some aren't.



My answer is lengthy and I apologize for that but I want to warn you of the advantages and the pitfalls of genealogy on the internet. We get your question many time a day. So I have cut and am pasting an answer.



Here is a link to various websites, some free, some not.



http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm







Websites that only have family trees are not worth a tinker's curse unless you are willing to verify the information with documents/records. They are subscriber submitted, very seldom documented and if they are they are poorly documented. You frequently will see the different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same info on the same people from different subscribers but you would be very foolish if you thought for one moment that that means it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The information can be useful as clues only as to where to get the documentation.



Right before Christmas of 2008, I found out I was dead. So was my sister and my brother-in-law. We died in New Jersey. Since the only time my sister and I were ever in New Jersey is when our family drove through it coming from New York in 1957. It was the same year Hurricane Audrey hit in our part of the world. Hey! we had been dead for 51 years. It says so on the internet. It has to be right if it is on the internet!



I found out that family on both sides married and died in New Jersey. Since my ancestry is mostly southern American colonial with some exceptions and those exceptions came in through southern ports, I was surprised.



This tree would have been accepted by any genealogy website. You can make up an entirely fictitious family tree and it will be accepted. You disagree with something someone has on one of your family members, the websites will tell you that it is between you and the other subscriber.



This subscriber had almost 150,000 names in her family tree. There are too many people with trees on the internet that think it is more important to get as many names as possible rather than have a good verifiable family tree. They copy info from other family trees, perhaps on their inlaws. Then they find inlaws of their inlaws and go crazy. One website, genealogy.com use to encourage people to merge other people's family trees into theirs. That is downright sloppy genealogy.



Now the best for the total amount of records online isn't free but your public library might have a subscription to it. That is Ancestry.Com. Still be careful about the information in their family tree, particularly their One World Tree program.

If you have been into Ancestry.Com, you might have an option at the top to "switch back to old search." I find it much better, then to the right when you are under search you can pick categories to search under.



CyndisList.com is a website with links to many other websites, some free and some not. Many people involved in genealogy find it helpful.



Not all records are online but the ones you will find will save you time and money traveling to courthouses, libraries etc.



However your first free source is your own family. Get information from them. Tape your senior members if they will let you. People who do this state they go back and listen to the tape again after doing research and hear things they didn't hear the first time around. I am not saying they won't be confused or wrong on some things.



Find out if anybody in your family has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can be helpful.



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 that I know. Just call the nearest Mormon Church or visit their free website, FamilySearch.org, to get their hours for the general public.



Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org are 2 free sites but remember verify information in family trees with documents/records. If you don't you don't know whether it is accurate or not.



Also be wary of any website, merchant in a mall or at airport selling so called "family crest." A crest is part of a coat of arms. Coats of arms do not belong to surnames and in British countries they do not belong to families. There are clan badges in Scotland. However, any coat of arms granted by the Lord Lyon of Scotland or the

College of Arms in London belongs to one man and one man alone. The family history that comes with them will not be the family history of everyone with the same surname.



If any website populates your family tree they are taking the information from other subscribers' family trees without any verification.



Edit: People on this board answer for meagre pay and benefits. So it pays to be courteous about their answers.

See the link. Read the questions and all the answers



https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20090328202959AAyeeFi&show=7#profile-info-dtCF36Psaa

Answer 7

Some one has to pay somewhere for keeping records of some sort unless you are going to do a lot of travelling which will also cost money, so which is it to be.