We are fortunate to live in a time when a great deal of genealogy research can be done from home. Years ago, getting started often meant writing letters to relatives, visiting libraries, ordering records, and searching through old family and county histories.
Those things are still important, and talking with older relatives should always be one of your first steps. But today, beginners can get a strong start online.
The problem is knowing which genealogy websites are worth your time. There are thousands of them, and they do very different things. Some help you find records. Others teach research skills, locate graves, search newspapers, or help you understand where records may have been kept.
Here are ten genealogy websites that can help you get started.
1. ThoughtCo Genealogy
https://www.thoughtco.com/genealogy-4133308
ThoughtCo has a large collection of articles about genealogy and family history research. You can learn how to get started, organize your research, locate different types of records, understand surnames, use DNA, preserve family information, and work through research problems.
It is more of a learning resource than a records database, which makes it useful when you are still building your genealogy skills.
2. Ancestry.com
Ancestry is one of the best-known genealogy websites and has a large collection of historical records from the United States and other parts of the world.
You can search census, birth and death, marriage, immigration, and military records, as well as directories, family trees, photographs, and many other collections.
Ancestry also provides record hints that may point you toward records connected to people in your family tree. Those hints should always be checked carefully before adding the information to your research.
Ancestry is primarily a paid subscription service, although free trials or limited free access may sometimes be available.
3. AfriGeneas
AfriGeneas focuses on African American genealogy and African ancestry research in the Americas.
The site includes research guides, surname information, records, databases, and other resources designed to help researchers trace African American families.
Specialized resources like this can be especially helpful when working through the difficult transition from the post-Civil War period into earlier generations.
4. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries
https://publications.newberry.org/ahcb
County boundaries have changed many times throughout American history, and that can cause problems for genealogists.
Your ancestor may have lived in the same place for decades while the surrounding county changed. A record you expect to find in one courthouse may actually be located in another.
The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries from the Newberry Library helps you see how county boundaries changed over time and determine where records may have been created or stored.
5. BillionGraves
BillionGraves is a cemetery database built around photographs of grave markers and GPS locations.
Volunteers photograph headstones with the BillionGraves mobile app, and those images can then be searched by other researchers.
Headstones may provide birth and death dates, family relationships, maiden names, military service, and other useful clues. GPS information can also help you find the actual grave when visiting a cemetery.
BillionGraves has a useful free level along with optional paid features.
6. Chronicling America
https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america
Old newspapers can provide information about your ancestors that you may never find in a census or vital record.
Chronicling America is a free collection of historical newspapers from the Library of Congress. It contains millions of digitized newspaper pages from nearly every state and territory in the United States, with newspapers published through 1963.
You may find obituaries, marriages, births, court cases, business advertisements, accidents, social events, property transactions, and other details about your ancestors and the communities they lived in.
7. FamilySearch
FamilySearch is one of the largest free genealogy resources available online.
It provides access to billions of historical records, digitized documents, genealogies, books, research guides, and a large shared family tree.
Because the FamilySearch Family Tree is shared, information can be changed by other users. Always check the records and sources attached to a person rather than assuming everything in the tree is correct.
FamilySearch and Ancestry have different collections, so using both can sometimes help fill gaps in your research.
8. Family Tree Magazine
https://familytreemagazine.com/
Family Tree Magazine is useful for improving your research skills.
Its website includes genealogy articles, research strategies, forms, worksheets, podcasts, and other tools for family historians.
Some material is available for free, while other articles, guides, magazine issues, and research tools require a paid membership.
9. Find a Grave
Find a Grave is one of the largest online collections of burial information.
Memorial pages may contain cemetery locations, headstone photographs, dates, biographies, family relationships, and other information contributed by users.
Once you locate one ancestor, check other people buried in the same cemetery and look at linked family members. You may find relatives you were not originally searching for.
Because much of the information is contributed by users, biographies and family connections should be checked against other records.
10. USGenWeb Project
USGenWeb is a volunteer-run project providing free genealogical and historical information for states and counties throughout the United States.
Depending on the state or county, you may find cemetery transcriptions, marriage records, photographs, maps, obituaries, local histories, family Bible records, indexes, and other locally contributed information.
The amount of material varies from one county to another, but that local focus is what makes USGenWeb useful. You may find records or transcriptions there that are difficult to locate in the larger genealogy databases.
Looking for the Best Free Genealogy Sites?
If free access is your main concern, several websites on this list are good places to begin. FamilySearch, USGenWeb, Find a Grave, Chronicling America, AfriGeneas, and the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries can all be used without a paid subscription. BillionGraves also provides useful free access.
Family Tree Magazine combines free and premium material, while Ancestry is primarily a subscription service.
You do not need to pay for several genealogy websites when you are just getting started. Use the free resources first, learn what records you need, and then decide whether a paid service would help with a specific part of your research.
