Cole Desher: I like Ancestry, if you are a non-hispanic white american whose ancestors have been here for a while. Blacks are doomed to dead end in 1870, if not sooner. The fact they have common names, many were nearly illiterate and the white enumerators / county clerks / etc. didn't take as much time with them as they did with the better-off whites makes them tough to trace.I've found a surprising amount of genealogical gold in the society pages in the newspaper archives, especially the wedding articles. Once you get past the bride's dress and the flowers, the Groom's cousin, is best man, the bride's maid of honor is her younger sister, the bride's aunt Dorothy helped with . . .I like the US Gen Web county level sites, the Roots Web Mailing list archives, GenForum and the Ancestry Query boards. Google Books has digitized a number of those old County "Pictorial and Biographical" Histories, which are 75% fluff but 25% gold....Show more
Foster Padgette: 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 nothttp://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008....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 dea! d. So was my sister and my brother-in-law. We died in New Jers! ey. 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.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 trees.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 peopl! e all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have th! e 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....Show more
Douglass Sarley: I don't think there is any one site that I can say is the best, and it depends on what particular record you are looking for. I prefer the free sites. They often have user contributed records. I probably use the census records the most. You can access them on genweb project sites or Heritage Quest. Family search.org has Social Security death records and some trees. WPA grave search, Find a Grave, and Genweb projects have some cemetery ins! criptions. The Ellis Island site has immigration records. Genweb Archives often have some good records. Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness volunteers are great or you can hire a researcher. The National Archives and state archives have many records. You can also just search for a name and location and see what you come up with. Alta vista is a good search engine to use for that. You can also search by county, state, and the word genealogy and see what sites come up. Some states have some excellent records online. Good luck....Show more
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