Sometimes the best place to start your genealogy research is in the comfort of your own home. A few weeks ago I told you about my favorite free genealogy websites and my favorite paid subscription genealogy websites to help you get started on genealogy search. Now here is yet another excellent tool for researching your family history: Google News Timeline.

This interactive timeline allows you to research specific events and see all the related news and information about that event in a timeline format.

When you get to Google News Timeline, you will see a timeline of current events and the current date. It looks like a series of columns, at the top of each column you’ll see the day and then under that day, you’ll see news events from that day.

To enter a search about a specific event, you enter in the name of the event or the day, date, month or year and then click on Add Query. What comes up is a timeline displaying news from the time of the event that you entered.

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DNA Genealogy has become a hot topic in the news and with genealogy professionals and hobbyists alike. The reason is simple, people want to know, “where did I come from?”

Let’s face it, even the most skilled genealogist is going to come to the end of the line in terms of documentation, records, images and evidence of ancestors. When you compare the length of time humans have been inhabiting this planet to the length of time humans have been keeping records, there is a huge disparity. Then factor in natural disasters and unruly political and religious leaders who destroyed valuable documents either intentionally or inadvertently through poor storage methods and other circumstances. What we are left with is barely enough information to go more than a few hundred years back in our search for our ancestors.

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We always see them together, there are pictures of them together all over the Internet, and they collaborate together and they even grew up together, and now we find out they are related!

According to the New England Historic Genealogy Society, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, two prominent Hollywood actors are tenth cousins. Apparently, they share an ancestor by the name of William Knowlton Jr. He was a bricklayer from England who came to the U.S. in the 1630’s, a time when England was aggressively settling the new Colony of Massachusetts.

Here is what I found out about our Mr. William Knowlton Jr.:

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All too often genealogy doesn’t become interesting until a person gets a little older, has a child, or uncovers some amazing truth about the family.

It’s never too late to get hooked on genealogy research, but what if you could have started when you were a child or teen? Just imagine all the information you could have gathered at family reunions, from aunt Bessy, or the pictures you could have had of great, great grandma before she passed away?

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Once upon a time, a curious genealogy researcher wanted to learn all she could about her family and ancestry. She packed a light lunch, plenty of water and headed off. She made the long trek to the county court house where records of marriages and births, deaths, adoptions and everything else she could possibly think of were kept. She spoke nicely and politely to the county court clerk who led her through a maze of doors and rooms filled with stacks and stacks of leather-bound record books.

With a pen, some paper, a camera and tape recorder, she began to search through the books to find any information she could about her mother, father, grandparents and great grandparents.
She spent many a summer day, in that records repository, searching and reading, recording and searching some more until her lungs filled with dust and she just had to stop. She stepped out of the gloomy darkness of the repository into the searing heat, her eyes blinking against the bright sun…..

Things have come a long way in a short time. Now our curious genealogy researcher can access many of those same records online from the comfort of her home.

Last week, I wrote a post about my favorite free genealogy websites that have records and I mentioned that I would write about my favorite paid subscriptions sites.

As promised, here is my top choices for subscription or paid genealogy sites. All of these are membership-based sites that allow you to access their databases after you sign up and pay a fee. The fees range in price and some have shorter sign up options. There is also a huge range in the amount of data you can access.

In the end, you’ll have to decide which ones fit into your budget and which ones you think will give you the best options. I’ve written full reviews of all of these so look for them in the coming weeks in the reviews section of ObituariesHelp.org.

My top paid genealogy websites. These are the ones where I think you get the most for your money:

1. One Great Family

This is my favorite website for keeping track of family records. It’s the most advanced, but easiest to use online genealogy tool out there. The data is cross-referenced so if you enter in as many people as you can into your family tree. You could wake up one morning with hundreds more names added to it! It’s amazing.

It connects you to branches of your family tree you may not know exist. And because it’s so popular, chances of finding someone else with your ancestry is very good. You can also find out if you’re related to someone famous.

The difference is that One Great Family doesn’t store your information, it searches other family trees with similarities so eventually, you’ll be able to see how your family is connected to every other family in the world. Very exciting.

There is a 7-day free trial, and you give them your credit card that they charge after the 7 days. An annual membership is only $5.00 USD a month right now, down from $6.67 USD/month. You can upload your existing GEDCOM files or enter in names and dates you know. The more you enter the easier it is for the system to match you with other family members.
Give it a try, if you’ve tried family tree software and other family tree websites out there, you’ll know what I mean when I say this is the most advanced, yet easiest to use online genealogy tool out there.

2. Ancestry.com

With the biggest name in online genealogy, a membership to Ancestry.com allows you to access to over 27,000 record collections with billions of names. Transcribed or scanned records can be viewed online. The data comes from the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Sweden. They have a free monthly newsletter that describes new collections, and news in the world of genealogy research.

A yearly membership is about $13.00 USD - $25.00 USD a month, depending on the records you need to search. But for people who make it a point of searching once a week for records that you can print out and review later, it is really worth it.

You can try it out for 14 days for free, but you have to give them your credit card. It will be charged after the 14 days. If you wish to cancel, you have to call an 800 number that only works in the US. So if you are outside the US, you may incur long distance charges to cancel your membership.

3. World Vital Records

World Vital Records is the second big name in the online genealogy world whose collections compare to Ancestry.com but their prices are way cheaper and they have way more Canadian and World records. They’ve consolidated the data from 42 different membership services into one big database. So you get a lot for your money.

Plus they have a 30-day money back guarantee so you can actually use the full service for 30 days before deciding if you want continue or not.
World Vital Records allows you to search their records by the usual, birth and death, census, court, directories, military records and so on, but you can also search by place or by recently added databases, so you’ll only get recent search results.

They also have a free weekly newsletter that I highly recommend you sign up for. Their newsletter is full of great search tips, articles, tutorials to help you learn more about online genealogy, and more.

4. The Origins Network

Search your Irish, British, or Scottish ancestry back to the 1400’s and then get copies of birth, death, marriage and other records. Scottish records are free to access. They’ll let you do a free search of the Irish and British records, but you’ll have to join before you can view the transcribed or scanned documents.

The bonus is that you can by a three-day membership for about $13.00 USD so you can do a lot of searching and printing in those 72 hours and take your time reviewing it all. Then you can decide to buy a monthly (about $18.00 USD) or annual (about $78.00 USD) membership.

If you have British or Irish Ancestry, this membership is definitely worth it.

5. Newspaper Archive

Newspaper Archive is one of those subscription sites that puts your family history into perspective and gives you those stories that make your ancestors come alive.

It has over 250 years work of newspapers, scanned, indexed and searchable online. If you want to find news stories, announcements, classifieds or anything that your family might have done, you can read it in the scanned newspaper.

Doing a simple search for a name can come up with stories about your family you would never have known. I found out my grandfather helped to rebuild a home that was destroyed by a tornado. His picture was in the paper with the family whose home was destroyed, standing in front of the house they rebuilt.

Those kinds of finds may not have exact or accurate records, but they make your ancestors lives real and you find out what kind of people they were. Even if you don’t see your ancestor’s names, you will find out what was happening in their community at the time of their lives, which helps to put perspective on what life was like back then.

An annual membership is about $10.00 USD a month and gets you access to newspapers from the mid 1700’s to the present.

6. Footnote

This is an excellent website that has scanned original historical documents and an online community willing to share their knowledge and research. There are several collections at footnote that you won’t find anywhere else, including the American Wars, US Presidents and naturalization documents. Everything is scanned and viewable online. Some are even free to browse so you can see the quality of images and the range of information you’ll be able to find.

The best part is the members. The members share their images, stories, personal accounts, and family histories to make history more than just facts and events. But don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of facts and events for you to search through, in addition to the connection of people who make this a really great website.

Membership is about $7.00 USD a month and allows you to keep a personal database of images and data that you can make notes on, you can create your own web pages, have a gallery of your favorite images and share images with family and friends.

There is also a free membership that lets you search, create a gallery of free images. The free membership is pretty good too, but of course, to take full advantage of unlimited access to all 60 million images, you’ll want to get the paid membership.

So now many of those records you find in dusty old repositories are available online and more and more records are becoming available every day. I’m not saying you won’t ever have to spend a day in the dark storage of some repository in some remote place, but before you start packing, try these sites out first. You may be pleasantly surprised by all the gems of information available online.
Comment below to let me know what your thoughts are about my choices and what exciting nuggets of news you’ve found out about your ancestors!

There are a million websites that have information about genealogy, census records, and family tree research. Some are free and some expect you to pay a membership fee. When you are just starting your family tree research or when you are a little strapped for cash and don’t want to make an investment for something that might just be a hobby, there are alternatives to subscription genealogy websites.

Don’t sign up for a subscription genealogy website just yet, get your ancestry search started at these resources first. Besides, some subscription genealogy sites are worth the price of admission and others, not at all. Look for an honest evaluation of these subscription sites in the coming weeks. A lot of that same information is available for free, you just have to know where to look.

Here are the best free genealogy websites where you can get some good solid information about your family tree, ancestors and get your genealogy research off on a running start. With these resources, you could be researching for months!

It bugs me when websites claim to be free, only to have a hidden cost involved, or expect you to pay to view certain document.

I’ve eliminated so called free websites that have a free index but you have to pay to read the original scanned document, I’ve even eliminated free websites that are simply a list of links to other paid websites. If there is any cost involved to view the information online, you won’t see that website on this list. The only thing you’ll have to pay for is if you want original or certified documents sent to you. In that case, you have to pay postage, copy and other administrative fees.

What you are getting here are truly FREE genealogy websites with no strings attached. I’ll tell you about some of the other ones in another post, the ones with strings, and I’ll let you know what I think of them too.

Here are the best of the truly FREE genealogy websites in no particular order:

1. Family Search

Family Search is one of my favorite genealogy websites. It is maintained by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) and they are committed to keeping genealogy free. It is completely run by volunteers so there is no hidden fee or cost to join or access their database. You can even volunteer your time to enter data into their archives.

2. Our Timelines

This is a really cool website where you can find out what was happening historically during the lifetime of one of your ancestors or yourself. Just enter the person’s name and the years of birth and death and the program generates a timeline of historical events that happened during that person’s lifetime. It’s a great way to find out what life was like back then.

3. Archive.org – The Way Back Machine

This website lets you search old websites that may have moved or been taken off line. They have over 150 billion cached copies of old archived websites. For Genealogy search, you can find free scanned copies of family and local histories. Just click on “Texts” and then click on “Additional Collections” then choose “Genealogy”

4. U.S. Geographic Names Information System

Search documents pertaining to over 2 million geographic locations in the United States. Federally recognized locations, National Parks and geographic coordinate, by state, or by county.

5. Native American Genealogy

Free information about America’s Native Americans and Canada’s First Nations People. This database includes several Roll Indexes as well as DNA and Tribal Histories. An excellent free resources for genealogists and historians.

6. AfriGeneas Library

This is a database of transcribed records if African-Americans including marriage records, directories, family histories, newspaper articles, slave records and more.

7. JewishGen Family Finder

This is a free searchable database of ancestral towns and surnames currently being researched by Jewish Genealogists worldwide. The site is maintained by JewishGen which is a not for profit corporation that accepts donations to keep running. However, using the database is completely free once you create a profile and register.

8. Japanese Immigrants to the United States 1887-1924

Much of the data in this collection focuses on first generation Japanese immigrants to Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho and has been transcribed from census, cemetery records, obituaries and local histories.

9. Bureau of Land Management General Land Office Records

This is a free government website that allows you to research about parcels of land. For example, if your ancestor obtained a piece of land from the U.S. government any time between 1820 and 1908, you can find that original document here. This is one of those websites that you’ll have to pay for a certified copy of the document, however, viewing the document online is free.

10. Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild

Dedicated volunteers are tirelessly transcribing ship passenger lists with a million passenger records to date. All online, all free.

11. Ellis Island Free Port of New York Passenger Records Search

The free Ellis Island Free Records Database allows you to search immigrants who entered the U.S at Ellis Island or the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924 with links to transcribed records and digital images of those documents. You can search by names, year of arrival, year of birth, town of origin and the ship name.

12. Bremen Passenger Lists 1920-1939

All other passenger lists from 1875-1908 were destroyed and any other lists were lost in World War II. But these lists were hidden in a salt mine during the wars and have been transcribed and are available online for you to search.

13. Civil War Soldiers and Sailor System

Find basic facts about United States servicemen who served in either Union or Confederate Armies during the Civil Wars. Search millions of soldiers by name, regiment, cemetery, battle, and even if they were a prisoner.

14. Commonwealth War Graves Commission

This website is an amazing resource for anyone who had ancestors serve Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom in World War I or World War II. You can search records, they call it the Debt of Honour Register, for casualty records and cemetery records. And all the information is free.

15. DAR National Society

Daughters of the American Revolution Society will do free look-ups for you! If you want to know if your ancestor is recognized by the DAR as a Revolutionary Patriot, complete the form online and their volunteers will look up that information plus, names, spouses, rank, service, state and pension information too.

16. Free Genealogy Lookups – One per day

The Ancestral Findings website of North Carolina allows you to request one free search per day. Follow their rules and be nice about it and they will search birth, marriage, census, military, state and other historical records for you, absolutely free.

17. National Archives Research Catalog

This is the online catalog of the U.S. National Archives. There are thousands of resources available online, scanned documents, transcribed documents and where to find the originals. These records include birth, death, military, maps and more.

18. Australia’s World War Two Nominal Roll

You can view transcribed service records for Australia’s men and women who served in World War II. They will even reproduce a certificate for you that you can print, but it’s not the actual document.

19. Free Genealogy Translations

This website is in French but is still easy to use. Choose the language you need translated and you’ll be taken to a form that’s in both French and English.

20. Library and Archives Canada

Collections Canada has assembled all Canadian archived databases and records for births, deaths, marriages, census, immigrations, land, military and other records. Enter the data you know into the search boxes and view actual records online.

21. GeneaBios

GeneaBios is is a small website that genealogists have used to post biographical information about certain individuals. To date their records include free biographies that visitors have posted and links to other free biographies on other websites. It isn’t a huge database, but it’s growing. If you can find an ancestor there, you’re in for a treat because there is lots of detail included in most bios.

22. National Archives of Norway

Digital Archives of parish registers, real estate registers, photos, and tips on how to trace your ancestors in Norway. This website is available in English or Norwegian and information dates back to 1801.

23. British Columbia Vital Event Indexes

This website contains summaries or scanned copies of original documents in the archives. If you need to see the original document, download a price list. But you can access a lot of data without having to pay for it. The data dates back to 1872 when BC became a province.

24. Canadian County Atlas Digital Project

Here you can see digital images of maps created between 1874 to 1881 of Ontario Counties. Included with the maps are the names of subscribers and their businesses and in some cases their portraits.

25. Australian War Memorial

Australian War Memorial is an excellent place to locate information about the part Australia played in the world wars. This is the official website of the Australian War Memorial Museum, so you have access to documents and artifacts online. There is a description and a transcription of each document online but if you want to see the actual document up close, you have to pay for a reprint.

26. National Archives of Australia

Search for records and then view the record online. This is an online catalog of the National Archives of Australia where you can search records, photographs, maps, and recordings with digital images online for the public to view.

27. Library of Virginia Online Catalog

Contains images of land patents, land grants and surveys online. They have an online catalog of land patents issued prior to 1779 and some records dating as far back as 1692.

28. Le Dictionaire Genealogique

This is a seven volume French Canadian Genealogy published by the Reverend Cyprian Tanguay. His work includes the genealogies of early French Canadian families dating from 1608 to about 1760.

29. Kentucky Vital Records

This compilation of state records are available for free search online. Search the Kentucky Death Index for 1911 – 1986, Kentucky Marriage Index for 1973-1993, and the Kentucky Death Index for 1987- 1992.

30. Canadian Genealogy Centre

Several free genealogy databases are available for search online. This website also serves as a gateway to other genealogy websites containing Canadian Genealogy Search Information.

31. German Military Grave Registration

This free database contains the names of missing and dead soldiers from both World War I and World War II. You will be required to register before you can search and view your results. Registration is free. Oh and you’ll have to be able to read German.

32. Utah Cemetery Burials Database

Free searchable database of over 650,000 burials in over 350 cemeteries. Search online to find the burial details of your family in Utah.

33. Index to the Enciclopedia Heraldica Hispano-Americana of Alberto and Arturo Garcia Carraffa

Over 15,000 names with their genealogical histories are included in this 88-volume work. You can do a comprehensive search of the list of Spanish and Spanish-American names to find out exactly where in the work the article about your Spanish heritage exists.

34. Distant Cousin

View scanned images of historical documents and search the online archive of genealogy records from several sources including newspaper obituaries, census records, city directories, school yearbooks, military records and more.

35. Danish Emigration Archives

Over 350,000 records of Danish emigrants is available online. You can search their database and read transcribed records that include names, dates, occupations, ticket information and more. It helps if you can read some Danish.

36. Greenville County Government Historical Records Online

A really well organized online database of records that go way beyond the usual birth, death, marriage records to include deeds, district court records, wills and probate records. Most are scanned and viewable online, but others are transcribed or their indexes are searchable.

37. FreeREG Search UK Parish Registers

Find baptism, marriage and burial records transcribed from parish and non-conformist church registers in the UK. The transcribed records are viewable online.

38. GenCircles

Upload your GedCom file and connect with others researching other branches of your family tree. If you don’t have a GedCom file, you can still register for free and contribute information and find information about your genealogy.

39. A Very Grave Matter

This is a website contains a collection of photographs and historical information about cemeteries and gravestones in colonial New England. New England, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont Cemeteries are featured in this free database. Donations are welcome, but use of the site is free.

40. Pennsylvania State Archives

Scanned or transcribed card files of veterans, service medal applications for National Guard, Civil War, Mexican Border Campaign, World War I, Spanish American War, Revolutionary War and Militia Officers.

41. Historical Directories

This is a digital library of high quality reproductions of rare books online. These books are local and trade directories for England and Wales from 1750 – 1919. You can search directories, browse or read pages from the books or print selections for your genealogy search.

42. The Olden Times

This website has scanned images of actual newspaper clippings of announcements of births, deaths, and obituaries. There is a lot of extra stuff that is interesting too like vintage recipes and such.

You can also search your local Provincial or State Vital Records and your local libraries. They also give you a place to start your genealogy search, and to find published family histories.

If you know a really good website out there that didn’t make it on this list, email me (melanie at obituarieshelp.org) so I can include it, but make sure it is completely free – for this post, I’m not interested in sites that have lists of links to subscriptions sites or lists of indexes that you have to pay to see the document. I want free information available online. I’ll talk about great paid websites soon, but for now, I want everyone to get started without investing a dime.

Leave your comments below to let me and others know what you think of these resources.

Welcome to the ObituariesHelp.org/blog.

Hi, I’m Melanie and in this blog, I’ll be sharing some interesting bits of information and articles on a few topics including, genealogy and ancestry, family trees, and obituaries.

This blog is for you, so I want to hear from you to find out what you are interested in, what you would like me to write about, and if you have any questions about genealogy or obituary, I will research it and write about it for you. Please send me your questions by posting a comment below or sending me an email to melanie @ obituarieshelp.org (remove the spaces, they are there so I don’t get spammed, but your emails are welcome!)

My goal here is really to make it a little easier to find your ancestors, to offer help when you need advice and to make your family history a little easier to navigate.

So let me know what you need to know and I’ll do my best to get you honest information and straightforward answers. Check back often for great articles and tips on how to find your ancestors both online and offline.