What is the most informative free genalogy site?

Question:

What is the most informative free genalogy site?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I am assuming that you live in the U.S. If my assumption is incorrect, there are still a couple of links within that will help, but not all will pertain to you.

The bottom line is that there is no website subscription based or otherwise that can fulfill all of your genealogy needs. You will find lots of useful information out there if you just know where to look. Here are some that can help just about everyone.There really are hundreds if not thousands of free resources out there.

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f... This is the webpage to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

http://searches.rootsweb.com/
This is a list of popular searchable databases on Rootsweb. There is a link to the Social Security Death index, as well as death records for California, Kentucky, Maine, and Texas. There are some international databases included too.

http://www.ellisisland.org/
If you are from the United States and know that you have ancestors that immigrated from other countries, there is a chance that Ellis Islands website could help you. You can actually look at the ships manifests on this site. It is so cool! You could even get information like how much money was in your great grandfathers pocket when he came over.

Then there are the message boards at both Genforum and Rootsweb. They have boards for surnames, counties, States, and countries. This would be a great place to post information you already know about family members and attempt to build on it. It is always wise not to post information on living family members.

http://boards.ancestry.com/default.aspx....
http://genforum.genealogy.com/

You can also look at many of the existing trees out there to see if anybody has created one including members or your families. Sometimes you get lucky, but if you find one out there, I would recommend researching the information yourself before including it in your tree.

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/......
http://www.gencircles.com/

Just about every state and county has its own Genweb page. Here is the website to the U.S. page

http://www.usgenweb.org/

Simply click on the appropriate state and county links to get to the localities you wish to search. Keep in mind, each page is only as good as its volunteers. The free genealogy sites online is entirely dependant on volunteers to share information and records that are available in its localities, which is why it is always important to thank a volunteer when they help you overcome another genealogy barrier.

There is also Cyndis list at
http://www.cyndislist.com/

This is exactly what it sounds like. It is a list of links to Free genealogy sites around the web. Just about every country and every state and every nationality has a link or two on Cyndi's list.

If I knew where you were from, I could probably give you more area specific links, therefore, if you would like to send me some information via my profile I may be able to help you further.

So, as you can see from my answer... there is a whole lot to learn about genealogy and finding resources. I learned just by jumping in and doing it. Once you get out in the genealogy community you will see that there are a lot of people eager to help you in any way they can. Have I made mistakes along the way? You bet... who hasn't? You will find though that the rewards are numerous and that it can get quite addicting. Blessings.