Position:Home>Genealogy> Is there a Website where you can track your family History....?

My answer is lengthy and I apologize for that!. One thing I want to warn you about the advantages and pitfalls of internet genealogy sites!.


You start with yourself and work back one generation at a time!. Now as you go back you will be in a myriad of family lines!. So work on one line and if you come to a brickwall, set it aside and work on another!.

Find out if any has any old family bibles!. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates and depending on the faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can yield important information!.

Get as much info from living family as possible particularly any senior members and tape them if they will let you!. People who do that state that after doing research they go back and listen to the tape again hear things they didn't hear the first time around!.

Check out the genealogy area of your public library!.

There are lots of websites!. I believe Ancestry!.Com is the best for the amount of original source records online!. They have all the U!.S!. censuses through 1930!. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet!. They have U!. K!. censuses through 1901!. They have military, land, immigration and other records!. They have indexes to vital records of many states!.

They have transcribed the records but you can view the original images!. There are errors in their transcriptions but when you view the originals you can have pity on the transcriber!.

Your public library might have a subscription to it and it would be wise to use it there until you get use to it!.

Now, a big word of caution!. Don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on their website or ANY website, free or fee!. They are susbscriber submitted, seldom documented or very poorly documented!. You very likely will see 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 to think 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!.

I have been giving this warning for 2-1/2 years or so on this board!. Right before Christmas, boy did I ever find confirmation!. I decided to put in a name of an uncle of my grandfather to see if there were other subscribers I could contact!. The reason why, there are at least 4 different people with the absolute same name in our family!.

This uncle was married 3 times since he was widowed twice!. I found a tree and it didn't have his first wife at all but his second wife who was the sister of his first, it showed he married her in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey!. She must have been something!. A farmer from Gonzales County, Texas went all the way to New Jersey in 1891 to marry her!.

Then I checked and I found out that me, my sister and my brother-in-law were all dead!. No dates of death given but we died in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey!. 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 1956, that means we have been dead for 52 years!.

I checked further and I found family on both my mother's and my father's side married and died in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey!. Since my ancestry is mostly southern American colonial with some few exceptions and those exceptions entered the country through southern ports, I was very surprised!.

Now, if this tree had been submitted to any of the other genealogy websites, it would have been accepted!. You can make up an entirely fictitious family tree and it will be accepted!. Any time you disagree with something someone has posted on any of your family, the owners of the websites will tell you that that is between you and the other subscribers!.

They have 2 good programs that you can put your family tree in, the Public Member Tree and the Personal Member Tree!. If you decide to do that, they will give you hints on records that appear to match persons in your tree!. Just make sure it is the same person!. also they will give you hints from other subscribers' trees of persons in your family tree!. WATCH IT!!. Don't go adding spouses and children etc to your tree just because someone else has them!. You want a good verifiable family tree!. Too many people with onlline trees think it is very important to see how many names they can get!. The person with all the wrong info on my family had almost 150,000 names!. To get good documentation on 150,000 would cost a fortune and probably would take a lifetime!. Documentation is the meat of genealogy!.

So websites that only have family trees are not all that useful!.

A good source is 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 a nominal fee!.

I have never had them to try and convert me or send their missionaries by to ring my doorbell!. I haven't heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources!.
Just call the nearest Mormon Church or visit their free website, FamilySearch!.org to get their hours for the general public!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

No there isn't, if you want to trace your family history then you need to get some information down about what you know about your family starting from you, then your parents, grandparents etc etc, basic details will get you started!.
DOB & place
DO Bap!.& place
Marriage date, to who and where
(Divorce, other marriages)
Death, date & where
Buried date & where
Join a class and learn how to trace!.

Online resources are great as a 'window' however you can't be sure the information is correct without details of the reference numbers from primary resource documents, so all you will be doing is collecting names and guessing and they could belong to anyone family and very often do when people try to trace in this way!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

You would have to do the work to actually find out, trace your parents, grandparents and so on till you knew exactly what country they began in!. There are many free genealogy websites on the web!.

Rootsweb!.com
FamilySeach!.org
Cyndi'sList!.com

Try doing a search with "your surname family tree" or some such to get started!. You might get lucky right away, most genealogists work many, many years to trace their tree!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

This my way of making it simple!. if you and afford it buy Family Tree Maker and you can ancestry!.com free for 9mos!.

If you want a free site to make a family tree go to www!.myfamily!.com you can even print if off your own printer!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

try myheritage!.comWww@QuestionHome@Com

---

---