Can anyone tell me if how to look up my Genealogy without it costing anything?

If you know any history about your parents and/or grandparents you should be able to go look up their names in census reports at a historical library. From there you can go look through microfisch or microfilm and try to find old newpaper articles about them from the time period.

If nothing else, and if there is a local historical socitey or library in your area, talk to the geneologists there. They ought to have helpful information about how to look up your geneological history.

There are actually a few good sites to look up information; Rootsweb (same as Ancestory.com but free), Family Search from the Church of Latter Day Saints, Gone But Not Forgotten (gnbf, mainly Canadian Genealogy), GenCircles (limited for free info), Ellis Island for landing records, provincial or state census archives, Department of Health Vital Statistics (not every province or state has this service and the ones that do let you go back 100 years for births and 70 or 80 years for marriages and deaths), or you can enter the surnames you're looking for into Yahoo or Google search. Doing the last will pop up allot of names so make sure you enter your search so "last name genealogy". Doing this will pop up web pages that contain genealogy lists, mailing lists, genealogy reports, and genealogy researchers.

If you know where your ancestors originated from e.g. Germany, Bukovina, Galicia, etc., there are webpages in the respective countries. I was lucky and got my hands on over 200 OFB's (Ortsfamilienbuch) for Galicia and a whole lot of other books published by towns that have done histories of their town, these books contain allot, but limited information (they might be online as well at least the ones I was interested in were)

Uncomputer related...your local library micro film archives, the draw back is, you pretty much have to know the approximate date of birth, death, marriage, etc.. Try church or town records from the towns that your ancestors were born, baptized, married, and died in.

Just some quick words of advise...always always include the source of where you got the information, explore different spellings of the last name e.g. Smith, origin - Germany - Schmidt (other spellings: Schmit, Schmitt, Schmid, or Smyth), remember your ancestors came from a different country, so chances are the names where changed or misunderstood when arriving in North America (I've found about 5 different ways my last name was spelt), and the most important of all HAVE FUN.

Happy Hunting

If you want to type in your name somewhere and get a 12-generation tree, skip the rest of this. I can show you where to dig, but you'll have to buy your own shovel and do the work yourself.

As a side note, before I start, since you are strongly in favor of free sites, contact the US Gen Web administrator for your county (Link below) and offer to help transcribe records. They are in favor of free data too. The more people they have to help, the more data they can put on-line for free.

Buying a shovel: If you get serious you'll need a genealogy program. Trying to do family research without a genealogy program is like trying to write a novel with a pencil and yellow pad, instead of a word processor. I like Roots Magic. Family Tree Maker is the market leader. Both cost around $29. The Mormons will let you download PAF for free. It is clunky, but it is free. You can sometimes find old versions of FTM or Family Origins (FO is the predecessor of RM) in bargin bins at CostCo.

These may help get you started.

http://www.cyndislist.com/

(240,000+ links, all cross-indexed.)

http://www.familysearch.com/

(Mormon's mega-site)

http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin...

(450,000,000+ entries, of varying quality)

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx?l...

Surname meanings and origins

United States only:

http://www.usgenweb.net/

(Subdivided into state sites, which all have county sites.)

(The Canadians have Canadian Gen Web, by province)

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cg...

(Social Security Death index - click on "Advanced".)

http://find.person.superpages.com/

(US Phone book, for looking up distant cousins)

Note:

You won't find living people on any of the sites except the phone book one. You will have to find your grandparents' or great grandparents' birth dates and maiden names somewhere besides the Internet.

The free sites are supported by advertising, just like TV. You can't watch the Super Bowl without seeing a beer commercial, and you can't surf for dead relatives without seeing an Ancestry advertisement. Don't complain about advertisements. They bring you the "free" sites. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Go to the public library in your town, they have access to ancestry.com and geneology.com, also the mormon church has millions and i mean millions of microfiche on geneology, they went around the world and copied records. Also, if you know the towns the people were born in you can go to the town hall and look up the old records, the books are amazing. if you need help just let me know i have done some on both sides of my family. hope this information helps you out. JoAnn

Check with the LDS church (Mormons). 15 years ago they maintained immense, free geneology resources in Salt Lake City. May be all online by now.

go to rootsweb.com it is a very good website and costs nothing. I have traced my family back to the mid 1500's with their help.

familysearch.org is the best genealogy website. It's free.