How can I find my ancestors and family tree?

Question:is there any way I can do this for free?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: is there any way I can do this for free?

Don't expect to push a button and find your family tree. I think there are rumors out on the street that everyone's family tree is on the internet. Not so at all.

You might find some of your family lines if some relative, distant or close, has worked on it. However, you cannot take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on ANY website, free or paid. The information is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly by many different subscribers on the same people that is no guarantee at all that it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. There are errors in family trees on the worldwide web.
Actually there are some people who just for fun put in a lot of people knowing there is no evidence that it is correct just to see how many people will copy. The information can be valuable as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

Your public library might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use.
Ancestry.Com has lots of records. 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 also.

FamilySearch.org and Rootsweb are 2 good free sites as they have good "how to" on genealogy.

A Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church is free but you must find out what their hours are for the general public. 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 Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at 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.

However, the first thing you should do is get as much information from living family as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. It might turn out they are confused on some things but what might seem to be insignificant story telling might be very signifcant. Find if any family has any old family bibles. Also, ask for and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. They have valuable information. Another source, according to the religious faith that can be of great value, are baptismal, first communion, confirmation, marriage certificates. You will usually find parents' names including mother's maiden name on these.

While you are at your library and also the Family History Center, you will probably have an excellent opportunity to talk with other researchers and sharing ideas and experiences is the way people learn.

Good Luck!

You could use www.familysearch.org its an amazing site completely free to use, see how you go on with that.

You can do research on the Internet for free. It is too much like homework for most of you kids.

If you are game, use the advanced search utility to search this category for "Free" and read the resolved answers. Someone asks the essentially the same question 5 - 40 times day here.

Why should it be for free? No one else works for free. People these days always want something for nothing.