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Question: Genealogy!? How do I look up my family tree!? !?
Genealogy!? How do I look up my family tree!?

Do services like ancestory!.com work!? Is it expensive!? How long will it take!? Any information will be greatly appreciated!.Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Unless someone in your family has a tree on a paid or free site, there isn't a specific tree on the Internet with your name on it!.

http://www!.familysearch!.org is a free site and a great place for a beginner to create a family tree!.

http://www!.rootsweb!.com is also free, and is owned by ancestry!.com!.
It's a Q&A forum and ancestry subscribers use it frequently to research their ancestors and to share info with others!.

Ancestry!.com will cost you $159!.40 annually!.
A one month subscription will cost about $20!.00!.
It's very worthwhile, to me!.

Most public libraries subscribe to a genealogy site, which is free to library cardholders!.
The library isn't always open when I want to research!.
They limit my time on the computer and I have to pay for printing any documents I find!.

The length of time it takes to do the research, depends on how much information you want to find and how much time and effort you're willing to put into it!.


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If you want to trace your ancestry, Ancestry!.Com is probably the best for total amount of records online!.

But family trees on ANY website, whether free or not free, must be viewed with caution!. They are not submitted by some expert working for the websites who just go around doing other people's family trees!. They are submitted by folks like you and me!. In other words, they are subscriber submitted and there are errors!. Don't expect to find living people in family trees as that is considered an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft!.

You might 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 that is no guarantee at all it is correct!. A lot of people copy without verifying!. The information is useful only as CLUES as to where to get the documentation!. Documentation is the source of good genealogy, not copying what some distant cousin in your family has uploaded to a website!.
Most of the trees online are not documented or poorly documented!. You can make up a family tree and it would be accepted by Ancestry!.Com or any of the other genealogy websites!. There is absolutely no way they can verify all the information in family trees subscribers submit!.

Whether a family history is online or in a published book, you should look for the documentation to back it up!. There is a lot of speculation and jumping to conclusion, I'm afraid!. Good documentation is not another person's URL!.

However, Ancestry!.Com has 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, immigration, land and other records!. They have indexes to vital records(birth, marriage and death) of many states!.

Genealogy is not a matter of putting a name in a website and up there is your total family tree without errors, all done for you!.

The internet websites can be a useful tool in genealogy!. However, don't expect it to be the soul source of your family history!. It is addictive!. It probably will take you many years and you still want to find more information!.

Ancestry!.Com has more than one family tree program if you choose to use it to put your family information in it!. I use the Public Member Tree and I enjoy it!. There oldest program was Ancestry World Tree but it looks like it has been discontinued!. One World Tree is trash!. If you use the Public Member Tree or the Private Member Tree, their system will notify you of records that they have that probably apply to your family members!. However, they will also notify you of people in One World Tree!. Watch it!. Don't automatically accept any names in your family tree unless you have verified it!. They are just providing you with information from someone else's family tree!.

When they set up One World Tree, they took information subscribers had put into Ancestry World Tree and tried to combine people with all the different information they had on that one person!. However, I have seen more than once they have combined two people into one!. Why they haven't scrapped that program, I don't know!.

I find the Public Member Tree a joy to work with!.

You should be the person who ultimately decides what is valid and what isn't from the reseach and documentation you get, not somebody else's family tree!.

Your public library might have a subscription to it you can use before purchasing a subscription yourself!. That way you will have a chance to experiment and get familiar with it!.



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