Create Your Own Family Tree Here - FREE!



People often ask: What is the best free ancestry site? How do I find my ancestors for free? We are here to help!
Welcome to our free family history site! We have been working on this since 1999. Finding your family history is like solving a never-ending puzzle. It is a great hobby filled with exciting, rewarding moments as well as frustrating ones. In the end, you will have created your own story, one that can be passed down to future generations. This is your very own piece of history. GET STARTED!
This page contains information about our site as well as general tips to help you get started with your own family search. Have fun!
About Us
Why we are DIFFERENT!
There are MANY sites out there that let you create your family tree. Here's how we are different:
Our website is FREE. Free to register, free to search, and free to add your family. This site began as our family site in 1999. As time went on, we have welcomed other families to join us. It's amazing how many connections we have made. We believe history should be free because it belongs to all of us.
When you add an ancestor to our site, additional information sometimes will pop up about their lives. It might be history events they lived through. It might be pictures of places they lived or stories they might have read in newspapers long ago. We try to make it fun by going beyond the names and dates.
While our website is not perfect, we do our best to keep it ACCURATE. There are so many family trees on the internet that contain false, misleading information, lacking the research. The internet is rewriting history. Inaccurate information is being copied and recopied. Soon the false information occurs in many more places than the accurate information, thus 'rewriting history.' We try not to do that.
Creating your own family tree can be a rewarding experience. These are the steps involved:
1) Create a User Name and Password -
Join for FREE!
If you have already done this,
Sign In
2) Begin adding your family -
Once you have registered and signed in, go to My Family Tree
You will be directed to a screen to help you enter information about your parents. Once you have entered your parents, you can continue by entering your grandparents, then great-grandparents, etc.
NOTE: If at any time during the process, you need a bit of help, please contact us (below). We will be happy to assist you.
Enjoy your family tree!
What is the difference between genealogy and ancestry? In short, ancestry is who you are, who you are descended from. Genealogy is the adventure of learning your ancestry. It is your own unique, exciting puzzle that you build piece by piece.
What is the point of genealogy? Each person has their own reasons for discovering their genealogy. To us, it is part of becoming whole. Connecting with our past is part of discovering who we are. Learning about our history helps us understand how we got to where we are today. Preserving our history is a gift to future generations.
Who are our ancestors? Our ancestors are the people from whom we are directly desceneded. Examples: Parents, Grandparents, Great-Grandparents, Great-Great-Grandparents, and so forth. Each of them has passed their DNA onto us. We are a part of them!
Here are a few tips to help you get started. For more information, check out our blog post Comprehensive Guide on How to Get Started in Genealogy: Unearthing Your Family's Past
- Start with YOU.
This is the best place to start because you know most about yourself. - Your parents:
Assuming you know them and they are still alive, ASK THEM EVERYTHING. Realize that they might not want to answer because the answers might be difficult for them. If they are willing to talk, parents can provide a lot of information. Ask them for not just family history statistics. Ask them to share photos and stories. That is what makes family history come alive! - Your grandparents:
If they are alive, TALK TO THEM NOW. Again, realize they might not want to answer everything. Learn as much as you can from them NOW. My grandmother once told me her family came from Prussia. I was a kid, I knew NOTHING about Prussia. All I knew was that it no longer existed. That was exciting to me. It might has well have been Atlantis! Now I spend hours, days, months, years trying to find the answers to questions she could have probably just told me, IF I HAD ASKED. ASK NOW! - Your great-grandparents:
If they are alive, LUCKY YOU! Listen to their stories. Ask to see pictures. - Having done as much of the above as you can, you now need to find your ancestor's records and stories.
There are MANY resources you can use. WORD OF CAUTION: Do NOT trust other people's family trees. So many of them are WRONG. If you find a connection to a family tree online, use it as a hint. VERIFY the information yourself. - Some of our favorite FREE genealogy websites include:
familysearch.org
findagrave.com
canadianheadstones.org
www.nosorigines.qc.ca
newenglandancestors.org
fillesduroi.org
www.castlegarden.org
www.libertyellisfoundation.org
www.archives.gov
www.rootsweb.com
www.acadian-cajun.com
news.google.com/newspapers - Google News Archive Search - If you are wililng to pay, it might (or might not) be worth checking out:
ancestry.com
newspapers.com
genealogybank.com
www.prdh-igd.com - Le Programme de recherche en démographie historique
www.fold3.com - It is possible that some of your family is already on our site! If so, feel free to add to that. If not, feel free to post your information on our site. It has been free to use since 1999 and it will remain so. Family history belongs to all of us! Find out how to use our site (instructions above).
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: Enjoy your family search! Compile your family story so that you can share it with future generations.