If you are on the quest to find out more about your family’s history there are a number of online options that you have nowadays for digging into your genealogy. Certainly far more than when I started this fascinating hobby or “detective hunt” as I often refer to it more years ago than I care to remember!
You can use free genealogy search sites to help you source lot of information. You can find paid sites that offer certifications, records and much more, however, when you are searching for so many people in your family history, this can become very expensive.
Fortunately there are so many free sites that contain much the same information, and sometimes even more, so this is where you should begin your search.
Firstly we are going to take a look at the benefits of using the Free Genealogy Sites. Tthen we will take a look at some of the most popular sites which are really helpful.
What Can Free Genealogy Search Sites Offer?
Let’s firstly take a look at what the Free Genealogy Sites can offer.
There are a large variety of free sites that offer a plethora of information and that will give you access to various features. There are websites that will give you access to birth and death records, marriage certificates, and some that will go back even further, listing census information, ships logs, newspaper articles, and lots of other information.
Additionally there are free genealogy search sites from all over the world that you can use. You will find sites dedicated to the UK and Ireland, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, and Africa.
Wide Range Of Free Genealogy Information
Using the free genealogy search sites you can search under numerous categories for the information that you require. So, instead of using a very general website, there are free sites that are far more specific.
For instance, you can find sites that access Jewish families and communities. There are sites that are dedicated to the 1820 census, sites that are focused specifically on the very first immigration point in the United States, and sites that contain parish records from specific churches. This makes it much easier to find specific ancestors if you already know something about them.
Some of the best free sites are those that contain information that has been collected by volunteers for specific organizations such as museums, historic societies, cultural societies, and libraries.
Tracing your family heritage can be a long, arduous process, and is fairly challenging, which is why it is vital to have such a large number of resources. Thanks to many of these organizations, your job will be much easier and you will be able to go back much further into your family’s history than ever before.
Free Family Tree Makers
There are many free genealogy sites that offer much more than just the databases of records and documents. Some also offer programs that allow you to build your family tree from scratch and store all the data that you have collected. These family tree sites allow you to enter your data and it will generate a digital family tree with all the branches so that you can view the information as a complete picture.
Save Precious Time
Aside from saving you money, the free sites, also give you the opportunity to save time, as you will no longer need to go to your local libraries, search through historical books and documents at your local Archives office and spend time driving around. You can sit in front of your computer and find all the information you need from all over the world.
No Need to Travel Overseas
If you have ancestors from another country, which is very likely, you will find it almost impossible to travel overseas to go and search for the certificates and information in person. This is where most people get stuck during their genealogy search and give up. Nowadays, with free sites from anywhere in the world, you no longer need to stop. In fact, you can go as far back as the medieval times in most cases, as there are free websites that will even list medieval tax records, and parish records.
There are many other benefits to using the free genealogy search sites, that you will discover as you use them, and as you find plenty of information about your family. Isn’t it good to know that you can complete your family tree without spending any money?
The Best Free Genealogy Sites
Here are our five favorite Free Genealogy sites that you might want to explore.
Family Search
If you do not wish to go down the road of using free trials, then one website that is an absolute must is familysearch.org. This website has been created and maintained for a number of years by the Mormon church and it has a number of records for various countries including birth, marriage, and death records as well as links to the parents of a person, brothers and sisters that they have had, and any children.
This has been made possible due to members of the church dedicating some of their spare time to uploading different items from census records as well as other sources and there is a very good chance that you will be able to uncover at least some information about family members from this single resource. Take a look at Family Search
RootsWeb
Rootsweb is one of the biggest free resources on the internet for when it comes to doing some research on your family tree as this forms part of the World Connect project that has been worked on by countless numbers of people for a number of years.
The idea behind this project is to offer people the chance to upload details about their own family tree that can then be searched by others and quite simply it is amazing the snippets of information, or missing links, that you will be able to uncover from this website.
USGenWeb Archives
If you are looking for information on relatives that were in the United States, then one of the best free websites has to be the USGenWeb archives. This website holds records for every state, but it will also give you access to information on things such as census records, wills, and even transcriptions from cemeteries for you to check out and there are hundreds of thousands of records to browse through from this free resource. Take a look at USGenWeb Archives
International Genealogical Index
The International Genealogical Index, or IGI for short, is a fantastic database that holds a number of important records such as births, marriages and deaths for a number of countries including the UK and North America.
This website allows you to search for specific dates of important life events with some records going as far back as the 1500s and it currently holds information on over 285 million deceased people and is a fantastic resource that is done in conjunction with the familysearch.org website that was mentioned earlier. Go take a look at the International Genealogical Index
Interment.net
As the name of this website suggests, this site allows you to search burial records from over 5000 cemeteries from around the world with this resulting in over 3 million individual records. However, do not worry if you do not get any results as the site does also offer you links to other similar sites that may have the information that you are lo