How far do you think you would have got with your family tree without spending a

Question: How far do you think you would have got with your family tree without spending any money or leaving your house!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I would have gotten as far as several sets of my 7th and 8th great-grandparents!.
It's amazing how far you can get on the internet, especially information from others who have researched a certain person for many years!.
Some of my ancestors were fairly well known and had large families, so it wasn't much of a task to find info on them!.
Of course, I have my main branch through my father who has been very difficult to find because they were Presbyterian in the 1700's and lots of records were kept but I can not find any through the church!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Interesting!. Unfortunately I only discovered FreeBMD a year into my research, so before that I'd been spending loads of money!.

I would say I would have only got to my great grandparents on my father's side, and way back to the 1850s on my mother's side!. The records haven't been transcribed for the countries on my mother's side, so the research is very hard to do!. But strangely, my mother's family knows so much by word of mouth, and they have really old photos!. my father's family don't know much about their history, but I've been able to find loads through UK censuses!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Well if you have family with documents you can go back as far as the documents they have!.

You can't trust online family trees to be absolutely correct!. So don't think you can go into a website and put in a name and say "Here it all is!." There are free websites but the ones that are free have very few records, mostly family tree information!. Trees are submitted by folks like you and me and very seldom documented or poorly documented!. So if you get your family tree from those type websites, you can't say you have a verifiable family tree!. However, a lot of dummies are copying!.

Cyndi'sList is a website with links to many other websites, free and fee!.

I have a feeling you know full well you have to leave your house and you have to spend money
if you want to do it right!.

In my case, I only had one grandparent growing up and she died in 1969 before I started family history!. My maternal grandmother died when I was 4 months old!.
My maternal grandfather died before I was 2 years old!. My paternal grandfather died from burns due to an explosion at an oil refinery when my father was only 13!.

My mother did have an aunt that was knowledgeable but she died in 1959 and that was before I was interested in genealogy!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The major part of my direct research was pre internet!.!. so anything involving records was through library or direct mail (travel)!.
With numerous ancestors!.!. if you are fortunate, you have family info within memory of living people!. Others are fortunate to get back to grandparents!. Even with family knowledge, that MIGHT take you back as much as 100 yrs or so!. There is always a limit on what persons would remember (if they knew it to start with)!.
I know it comes across weird at times, since a huge number of persons only have begun research since computers/ internet!. Many are blown away that you CANNOT do in depth genealogy without going beyond online sources!.
There are 2 ways to think about my experiences!.!. one, I am far more aware of the many records out there!.!. which are NOT online!. It helps me, and I try to alert people to those!.
The flip side is that I really really appreciate what is now online!. The idea of searching census films from HOME at 3 am, is something I would have killed for, 20 yrs ago!.
It is really discouraging to me, to hear people say "I tried finding my family online and could not find anything"!. Really, it is out there, if they start seeing the multitude of sources!. And even more so, if they ever find the level of records at just ONE county courthouse!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Does not leaving my house mean not going to Grandma's!? In every instance, all four of my grandparents knew the names and the birth and death dates of their parents and usually the names and life dates of their grandparents, which usually took me back to the early part of the 19th century!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

1850's!. Even then I wouldn't know how to tie all the late 19th Century photos together into their correct families!. Nor could I provide adequate source citations, or verify family lore!.

The expenditures for subscriptions and software have been worth it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

To my paternal great-grandparents and my maternal great-great-great-grandparents!.
My great aunts and great uncles on both sides helped by furnishing me with data on those generations!.Www@QuestionHome@Com