How can i find where my ancestors came from?
We were doing a project in school on ancestry and I realized I had no idea where my family originated. Is there a free website that I can go to to find my ancestors and what country they came from to America?
Tagged with: ancestors • ancestry • free website
Filed under: Research
Not in one step. First, you have to find who your parents were (easy, unless you are adopted), then who their parents were, then who their parents were, etc., one generation at a time, one person at a time. Then, when you reach someone not born in the U.S., you can try to find from where that person came.
You can do a surname origin search. If you are doing the Genealogy project that every teacher seems to be assigning these days, you will have to start with your parents and then your grandparents.
If you go to Family search.org, there are tutorials on basic genealogical research methods and you can also use the site to research your family
There is an excellent tutorial for those who are new to family research at http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ; this is an easy tutorial and perfect for someone who needs to cover the basics quickly. After you complete the tutorial, the following is a basic plan and generally only requires the tools that you already have like your computer and Internet service provider. [This is more information than you will be able to use for a school project but you may enjoy it and want to come back to it as a hobby from time to time.]
So, start with your birth certificate, which has your parents, and then ask your parents for copies of their birth certificates, which will have your grandparents on them. Then if you grandparents are living, continue the process. At some point, you will experience a problem depending on when you grandparents or great grandparents were born, in that; birth certificates did not exist before the early 1900s. You need to get back to 1930 with personal records because those types of records are not available to the public for 50 to 100 years depending on the jurisdiction in which they are held and census records which are quite valuable in tracing your ancestors’ movements are not available before 1930 at this time.
By copying or ordering these documents, you have gone to relatively little expense and you have three generations plus you and you have it documented with primary documents. That will give you 2 parents, 4 grandparents, and 8 great grandparents to start researching. Now, you can use death certificates, marriage records, census records, immigration records, church records, court records and many other sources to research your ancestry. Your public libraries will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you should be able to use Heritage Quest at home.
Another free online resource is the LDS/Mormon site, which has many free online records at http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Home/Welcome/home.asp and original documents on their pilot site at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=0 . In addition to their online records, they have Family History Centers where you can go for personalized help with research and look at microfilm and while they will not do your research for you they will help you, a lot. They only charge if they have to order something specifically for you or you need photocopies and their charges are minimal. Look on the home page of their website to find a location near you and call to check hours of operation. http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Home/Welcome/home.asp .
Additionally, USGen Web is another free online resource at http://www.usgenweb.org/ . This site is packed with how-to tips, queries and records for every state and most counties within those states. Then, there is Rootsweb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames, post queries on the message boards and subscribe to surname mailing lists.
Also, be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example, the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills and other court documents at http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinearchives/search.aspx
Also, Family Tree Magazine’s 101 Best Websites, 2010 http://familytreemagazine.com/article/101-Best-Websites-2010 You may have to register for their free newsletter to access this list but you will find that helpful also.
And the only site that is included on this list that has some links that are free and some that are not is Cyndi’s List but it will be well worth your time to look through the list for the free websites because of their quality: http://www.cyndislist.com/
Also, you can come back here for help with specific questions or search our archives for more “genealogy sources”.
you will need to find the following:
birth certificates
names
usually all you have to do is ask your parent’s. but sometimes it’s a lot more harder .then that
it’s time consuming but worth it’………
as for web-site’s that you dont have to pay for. most of all the good one’s. need at least a credit card.or debit.