what are some legitimate ancestry sites?

Millions of persons find their ancestry every day, using the internet. I've used it for over 20 yrs, and no, I don't subscribe to any of the services.

tip one... stop expecting a family tree. Look for a census record for gr grandpa John Oldperson in 1880. You will have had to find his children first, to have records of where they were born. In other words, bite size chunks. Your ancestors could be waving at you from a site called History of Corn growing. Records of Ancient shipbuilders. Totally legitimate. Family trees not even mentioned.

Shift your thinking.

tip two... tutorials are everywhere, you can trip on them. Several are at www.cyndislist.com in her beginner section.

tip three... if you are looking for a SURNAME, stop immediately. The only place where you track a surname is www.genforum.com (surname boards) or www.rootsweb.com (mailing llists). You still need to know which Jones is your Jones. The ones in Florida, not the ones in Oregon.

tip four... if you heard the standard "start with you and work back" , and ignored it, go back to square one. This is the foundation of knowing who is related to you, and worthy of your energy.

tip five (and last one for the moment)... live persons are normally not posted online. I should NOT BE ABLE to hit a few keys and find your parents, nor you find mine. Safety issues. After you do a little ground work, and find some of your dead persons, you could say "I am working on my ancestor Edward Wade who married Mary Clements". At that instant, I know you are related to me, without knowing where you are, your name, your gender, or anything else about you. We can spend the next five years talking about Ed and where he lived, and still be anonomous and safe.

edit-

I gave you a website that lists THOUSANDS OF OTHER SITES. If you are expecting it all online, there is the answer to why you are not succeeding. Sorry to get so direct about it, but your want websites or you want history.

Wendy is absolutely right.

There are lots of websites and Cyndi's list has a multitude of them.

Now a word of caution. Don't take as fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The information is user submitted. Most is not documented. Even when you see the same information repeatedly from many different submitted, that doesn't automatically mean it has to be correct. People are copying without verifying. Use the information as clues as to where to get the documentation.

Your public library might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can utilize. I feel they are the best for records on line. It seems they are constantly adding to their records. They have all the U. S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 is not available to the public yet. They have U. K. censuse also. They have transcribed the census records and some of the transcriptions leave a lot to be desired. However, you can look at the original image. If you have looked at census images already you can understand the problems transcriptionist have in their work.

I don't know if you have checked with a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They also have lots of records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection.

Their Family History Centers can order microfilm for you to view at a very nominal fee.

They don't bring up their religion and I have never had them to send one of the good looking missionaries by to ring my doorbell.

Ancestry.Com

Rootsweb

FamilySearch.org(LDS site) not One Great FAmily

Those 3 I believe are tops but you should check Cyndi's List. Some of the websites she has listed might have information you want.

Get a No Cost Background Check Scan at FREEPEOPLESCAN.COM Its a sensible way to start. The site allows you to do a no cost scan simply to find out if any sort of data is in existence. A smaller analysis is done without cost. To get a detailed report its a modest payment. You may not realize how many good reasons there are to try and find out more about the people around you. After all, whether you're talking about new friends, employees, doctors, caretakers for elderly family members, or even significant others, you, as a citizen, have a right to know whether the people you surround yourself with are who they say they are. This goes double in any situation that involves your children, which not only includes teachers and babysitters, but also scout masters, little league coaches and others. Bottom line, if you want to find out more about someone, you should perform a ancestry background check.

There is no magic website to find your ancestors. You can't just pop a name in and out pops your history. It doesn't work that way. It takes a lot of hard work on your part.

what websites have your tried. What makes you think they are not legitimate? Because you didn't find your family? Well that's probably because no one is working on it. That's how all this stuff gets on the net.

The best way I know for you to learn about your roots is to:

Build your family tree on line.

You can use a paid site like:

http://www.ancestry.com/

OR You can do this for free on:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, and then attach living family members.

Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.

Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:

It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"

Free sites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=27399&o_lid=27...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

Genealogy message board:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/newguide/?board...

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ab...

http://boards.ancestry.com/

http://www.gensource.com/common/search.cfm

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Family___Home/Gene...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

http://www.genealogyforum.com/messages/

http://www.progenealogists.com/messageboards.htm

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/boards.php?...

http://boards.rootsweb.com/

ECT.

The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file

you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

Upload your "GEDCOM" file

and start to work!

You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better.