Loise Mausser: My favorite site is http://www.cyndislist.com/
Alvaro Oare: Check out www.findagrave.com. It's a free site.
Inge Mclaurine: For general genealogy questions, I have had luck getting genealogy questions answered at:http://www.genanswers.com
Jefferson Sarson: There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. There are also, at last count, 2500+ questions with the word "free" in them in the resolved questions in this category. At least 1500 of them ask the same question you did.I have links to some huge ones, below, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first.If you didn't mention a country, 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 whiteThen you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research. You c! an only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly. Many young 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.htmlThat 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 NOT intuitive....Show more
Ha Wolski: I like Ancestry.Com for the amount of records they have online. However, you shouldn't depend solely on websites. Also you have to distinguish between the records they have obtained and their subscriber submitted family trees. Information in family trees on any website, free or fee, must be viewed cautiously. You will see different information on the same people from many different subscribers. Then you will see the same info on the same peo! ple from different subscribers, but that doesn't mean that the information is correct at all. Too many people copy without verifying. A lot of people in online family trees are too anxious to see how many names they can add to their database and into their tree that having a good verifiable family tree is not all that important.If you find Ancestry.Com too pricey, your public library might have a subscription to it you can use for free. Actually, it might be wise to use it for free at your library to get use to it. When I go into their website, I prefer to go under "Old Search" which is on a peach colored bar across the top as I can pick out specific records I want to check. No way are all records online but the ones you will find will save you time and money.Ancestry.Com has transcribed the records but you can view original images. There are errors in their transcriptions, particularly censuses, but when you view the original you will have pity on the transcribers.Here is ! a link to FamilySeach.org(free site) records. They are transcribing and! putting a lot of records online:http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsear…Don't expect to find information on living people in genealogy websites as that can be an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft and can also provide too much information for stalkers.If you haven't done so you should get as much information from living family as possible, particularly from family bibles, birth, marriage and death certificates and depending on their religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church.Also check out 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 for about $3.I have never had them to try and convert me nor have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. Just visit their free web! site, FamilySearch.org, to get the hours for the general public to the nearest Mormon FHC.Here is a link with links to 50 other websites, some free and some fee. I feel the ones that only have family trees are a waste of time. Information in other's family trees can be helpful as clues as to where to get the documentation.http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.......Show more
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