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Question: Where can I find out where my family is from without having to pay an arm and a leg to a genology website!?
My surname is of Irish decent and my grandparents came over in 1856!. How do i find out what town they were from and their family or clan's history!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
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!.!.!.

www dot usgenweb dot com/

www dot census dot gov/

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

www dot ukgenweb dot com/

www dot archives dot gov/

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

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

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

www dot geni dot 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:

www dot associatedcontent dot 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!.

There are so many websites devoted to genealogy; just google genealogy and see how many hits you get! You can even google "free genealogy sites" and get so many hits!. Don't forget to type in "smith family genealogy" (whatever surnames for your dad and mom, grandparents, etc!.), "webster county genealogy society", "kentucky genealogy society", etc!.
AND check Yahoo! genealogy answers, especially the top 10!. Just click on their profiles!.
Www@QuestionHome@Com

You can always spend hours in a library, on their computers, using their subscription!.
Or
You can go to the Mormon Church and use their computers and also spend hours researching thru their resources!.
Or
You can pay between $156!.00 & $199!.00 for an annual subscription to a reliable site!.

I prefer the latter!.
I can research my family history in the comfort of my home, whenever I like, print copies of Census records, search numerous data bases, including birth, marriage, death, military and immigration records, view other subscribers trees, as well as, add stories and photos to my tree!.

Regardless of how you begin your search, genealogy research is not totally free!.
During the first 5 years of researching the various branches my family trees, I spent at least $200!.00 on certified copies of land grants & deeds, birth, death, marriage and Revolutionary War & Civil War records!.

A few free sites are:
family search!.org is a great place for beginners!.
Simply register and follow the easy instructions!.
rootsweb!.com is a Q&A forum, owned by ancestry!.com!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Hiya,
I tried to figure out where you are!? US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand!?
If you know when your ancestors went to their destination, you should have avenues to find out something about them!. If Australia was their destination, and you know the Ship arrival date etc, it should be pretty easy to get stuff!. There are online indexes for a lot of years, NSW records have online immigration, Victoria has online indexes and so too does Qld!.
Some stuff you have to pay for, other stuff you can get for free by posting 'lookup' queries at different forums!. Try the 'Genforums' part of Genealogy dot com, they have great looker-uppers!.

Good Luck with your search, if you care to give a little more info on your ancestors destination, I may be able to direct you to more specific areas for research!.

KestaWww@QuestionHome@Com

These sites are all free and very useful:

familysearch!.org
cyndislist!.com
http://www!.cyndislist!.com/ireland!.htm
findagrave!.com
rootsweb!.ancestry!.com
ssdi!.rootsweb!.ancestry!.com
usgenweb!.org

Get all the information you can from these sites, and THEN consider at least a short-term subscription to Ancestry!.com!.

Best of luck to you!Www@QuestionHome@Com