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Question: Which is the best way to work out your family tree!?
Which are the best online sites or would a library be useful!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Here are the prices of Ancestry subscriptions!.
Monthly - $19!.95, or $239!.40 per year!.
Quarterly - $50!.85, or $203!.40 per year!.
Yearly - $155!.00, saving $84!.40 over monthly per year or $48!.40 over quarterly per year!.
Ancestry owns Geneology!.com (a paid site) and rootsweb!.com (a free site)!.

Advantage of going to the library: Using their subscription is free!.
Disadvantages of going to the library:
Your library may not subscribe to a genealogy site!.
You are limited to a certain amount of time on the computer!.
You have to pay for copying documents!.
You have to pay for renting any Census Records the library does not have on hand!.
You have to leave when the library closes!.

Of course, you can travel to the various locations to research your family history!.
How much are you willing to spend on travel expenses!?
Flying/driving, motel, gas, food, boarding a pet, all cost money!.
Can you afford to take that many days off from work!?
Are you willing to give up your vacation time for family history research!?
Your family will love sitting a boring motel room while you're in the library doing research!.

Been there, done all of that and will not be doing any of that again!.

A paid subscription is the best way, for me, to do research!.
I can research in the comfort of my own home, in my old granny looking housedress, if I like!.
I can stay up as late as I want and research any time of the day or night!.
I have access to Census, birth, death, marriage, immigration records, as well as, other subscribers trees!.
And, my family vacation time is reserved for a family vacation!.

I tried a few "free" sites and found them to be lacking in on-line resources!.
I'm very happy with Ancestry and feel it is a good investment

I don't work for Ancestry, I'm not promoting my own site and I'm not trying to sell you anything!.
I just thought a few facts would help you make a more informed decision, concerning subscribing to a paid site!.
Www@QuestionHome@Com

The best sites depends on where you are and who you are!. No sense sending you to Cherokee!.org if you are Chinese!. Libraries are ALWAYS useful, especially if you live in the county your great great great grandfathers settled in 1842!. Here is my stock answer:

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites!. I have links to some huge ones, below, 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!. Here is the main link!.

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

That page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites, for a dozen huge free sites!. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems!. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer!. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer!. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look"!.

You will need the tips!. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, or they mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form!. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library!. I watched the mistakes beginners made!. The query forms on the sites are NOT intuitive!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

start with what you know about your family and work backwards
do not try and take short cuts
you should be able to go back to your great grand parents from talking to your parents aftert aht you will find
familysearch!.org
freeBMD
genesreunited
all very usefulWww@QuestionHome@Com

Start at your self and work back wards, get any information you can from living relatives especially aunts , uncles grand parents etc!.

You can try Genes Reunited, Find my past, Church of the latter day saints but to name three sitesWww@QuestionHome@Com

It depens on your background!.
Like if you are black ask Oprah for support,if asian then go and find your roots in Pakistan!.If you consider yourself a white ask Queen Elizabeth to support your searchWww@QuestionHome@Com