In Search of Family Tree for Free?

Oprah has message boards that might help.

In general, genealogy will NORMALLY involve research on your ancestry, and most of the time, those will be deceased. Any siblings, if factual, are related to you.. but since we would assume them to be living, you run into privacy rights. You won't be legally able to access birth records for other persons, which is what really would be involved. And.. if those children were adopted, it is even more complex. Those birth certs will have been amended to show the names of the adoptive parents.

The question is whether or not mom was married before. Marriage records are somewhat more accessible, if you can locate those. If the alleged children were all born out of wedlock, mom still might have married your father, using her maiden name.

I respect your desire to know the facts. That would need balancing with what mom is willing to tell you, if she is still living. You may be able to make some guesses based on her age when she and your dad were married. There may be other relatives, who are aware of the facts. Certainly, that could cause issues... mom might feel it is not the place of others to tell you, what she prefers to keep private.

Tough situation. The best I can advise you is to act with love and respect, as best you can.. see if she will open up, but understand if she doesnt.

I have been using 2 and they really good one on the internet. I hope this helps

there is a free family tree.. The church of latter day saints. Sorry if the spelling is wrong. I downloaded one years ago.. Good luck and have fun.

As to your genealogy, your ahnentafel, I can provide a few sites worth checking into.

Write down all the information that you can get, then start digging. Genealogy is a slow, time-consuming task at best.

Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

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.geni.com/

Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites:

http://www.ellisisland.org/

http://www.castlegarden.org/

For Scotland, check:

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

For Sweden:

http://www.genline.com/databasen/

-http://www.northpark.edu/home/index.cfm?...

http://www.finlandia.edu/catalog/intro.p...

For ship’s passenger lists, try:

http://www.immigrantships.net/

www.cyndislist.com/ships.htm

www.geocities.com/Heartland/5978/Emigration.html

www.immigrantstips.net/

www.searchforancestors.com/passengerlists/

www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/passenger-arrival.html

For those with native American ancestry, try:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

http://www.cherokee-nc.com/geneology.php...

http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/herita...

Netherlanders: http://www.genlias.nl/

For a fee, try a DNA test:

When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno...

For Jewish ancestry, try:

www.israelgenealogy.com

For people from India, try:

http://www.fibis.org/

Have a look at these sites these are South African ones,

http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri...

http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html....

http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website...

http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre.../

Meaning of names:

http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani...

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f...

Here are some general sites with lists of African names:

http://www.swagga.com/fname.htm

http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/afr.php

http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/ba...

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...

Military:

www.military.com

http://www.familymilitaryrecords.com/

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/militar...

http://websearch.about.com/od/peoplesear...

http://genealogy.about.com/b/2007/05/24/...

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ww1/draft/sea...

Finding live people:

Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com

Don't forget, use your local library. Ours (a small one, yet) has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as periodicals, books and guidance from an experienced genealogist.

Keep good notes on where you find what: sources are very important.

I became interested in genealogy when I was a small lad, before I started to school, as my Mom would tell me about her parents, my Dad's parents, and on back. That is also when I first got used to the idea of "the power of 2": You have 2 parents, they each have 2 parents, and so on. 5 generations ago, you would have had 16 g-g-g-grandparents; by 10 generations ago, the number would be 512 "grandparents"; by 35 generations ago, the number is 16,179,869,184 persons (compared to a total of 6,700,000,000 people alive on Planet Earth today). In other words, basically every one on earth can trace their COMMON ancestry back to within the last 34 generations! (Or, since Medieval Times.)

Good luck!

Other sites:

www.nationalobituaryarchive.com

http://www.obitcentral.com/obitsearch/

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/

http://zip.langenberg.com/

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welc...

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/

http://ancestryresearchsitereviews.blogs.../

http://www.search-background.com/

http://www.birthdatabase.com/

http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-o...

peoplesearch.com

smartpages.com. to get to US Search

http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-o...

http://www.ancestry.com/facts/-name-mean...

http://www.netsleuth.com/

http://affiliates.reunion.com/ads/ads/la...

http://www.peoplelookup.com/people-searc...

http://people.yahoo.com/

http://www.addresses.com/

http://websearch.about.com/od/wendyssear...

http://www.anywho.com/

http://www.whowhere.com/

http://www.nola.com/forums/searching/ind...

http://www.77investigators.com/messagebo...

http://www.voy.com/48081/

http://messages.yahoo.com/

http://www.angelfire.com/va3/search/Mess...

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/

http://www.ntis.gov/products/pages/ssa-d...

http://www.search-background.com/

Good luck and have fun!