Geneology?

Question: Geneology!?

where can i find my family tree at for free the last name is volz by the wayWww@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

You can find a lot of "free" information just by starting with your own family members!.

After you have gathered all of the information you can from them, check out your local library to see if they have any genealogical resources!. If that fails, check to see if there are any local genealogical societies!. Some of those groups have amazing amounts of documentation that you can access!.

From that point, I would look at:

Rootsweb!.com
Familysearch!.org
Yahoogroups

The first two are specific to genealogy, but Yahoogroups have some really good surname specific groups to look from!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I might mention if you are looking for family trees, be careful!. 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 if you see the same info repeatedly by many different subscribers that is no guarantee at all it is correct!. A lot of people copy without verifying!. The information is useful as CLUES as to where to get the documentation!.

If Volz is your surname, also take into consideration that it is only a small part of you!. You go back 10 generations and you can be directly descended from over a thousand people!. It pyramids!.

You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents!. That is 30 people already, not all had the name Volz!. Add in your 32 3xgreat grandparents and you are up the 62!. Then add in your 64 4xgreat grandparents and you are up to 126!. Next your 128 5xgreat grandparents and that total 254!. After that 256 6xgreat grandparents and you have a total of 510!.

Actually if you could get back to 20 generations, it would be over a million!.

Now, you think that is a lot of people!. It pyramids even more when you come down the line of descendancy!. Fella, you have a really big family!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites!. I have put links to some huge ones, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first!.

If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia!. I'm in the USA and my links are for it!.

If you are in the USA,
AND most of your ancestors were in the USA,
AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access,
AND you are white
Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research!. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly!. Many young people stop reading here and pick another hobby!.

No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs!. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late!.

You won't find living people on genealogy sites!. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth!.

Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true!. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources!. Cross-check and verify!.

So much for the warnings!. This page has the links!.

http://www!.tedpack!.org/yagenlinks!.html

When Y!A started there was no limit to the length of an answer!. There were not 8 million links in it to RootsWeb!. Now there are limits to length, I suspect, and to the number of times an exterior site can be mentioned!. This gets around the problem and lets you just click on a link, but that link has to be the one on my site, not one in this answer!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

You could be French, Swiss, Wuerttemberger, Bavarian, Prussian, Norwegian or Danish!. There are over 2000 immigrants to the US with that name!. You'd need to narrow it down with specifics on parents, grandparents, great-grandparents!. We'd need places, dates of birth/marriage/death, parents' and spouses' names!. With that, we might be able to point you in the right direction!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

You'll find a ton of information at this site, and you should be able to take it pretty far from there:
http://resources (dot) rootsweb (dot)ancestry (dot) com/cgi-bin/metasearch

Replace the " (dot) " with an actual dot!.!.!.
Good luck!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Try these:
You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history!. Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department!. Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc!. Our public library has both www!.ancestry!.com and www!.heritagequest!.com free for anyone to use (no library card required)!.
Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers!. They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you)!.
A third option is one of the following websites:
http://www!.searchforancestors!.com/!.!.!.

http://www!.censusrecords!.net/!?o_xid=2739!.!.!.

http://www!.usgenweb!.com/

http://www!.census!.gov/

http://www!.rootsweb!.com/

http://www!.ukgenweb!.com/

http://www!.archives!.gov/

http://www!.familysearch!.org/

http://www!.accessgenealogy!.com/!.!.!.

http://www!.cyndislist!.com/

http://www!.geni!.com/

Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever!.

Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example!.

Good luck and have fun!

Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites:

http://www!.associatedcontent!.com/article!.!.!.

Then there is the DNA test; if you decide you want to REALLY know where your ancestors came from opt for the DNA test!. Besides all the mistakes that officials commonly make, from 10% to 20% of birth certificates list the father wrong; that is, mama was doing the hanky-panky and someone else was the REAL father!. That won't show up on the internet or in books; it WILL show up in DNA!.
I used www!.familytreedna!.com which works with the National Geographics Genotype Program!.Www@QuestionHome@Com