are there any really free genealogy sites or are they all scams?

The following sources are available Online free-of-charge in the United Kingdom:

Cyndi's List. United Kingdom and Ireland..Ireland & Northern Ireland.. Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Retrieved from http://www.cyndislist.com/uk/irl/libraries

Family History UK. Retrieved from http://www.familyhistory.uk.com/

FamilySearch.org. Retrieved from http://www.familysearch.org/

FreeUKGen. Retrieved from http://freeukgen.rootsweb.com/

GenUKI: United Kingdom and Ireland Genealogy. Retrieved from http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/Genealogy.html

Library patrons should also take note of the following Website:

Free-family history research and Your Library. About.com Genealogy. Retrieved from http://genealogy.about.com/od/libraries.a.free_dat...

Most public libraries in the United Kingdom offer the British edition of Ancestry (on the ProQuest database) to their patrons Online just as libraries in the United States provide Online access the American edition. A reference librariann who specializes in genealogy can help you get started.

Incidentally, the library databases made available to English-speakers are much the same everywhere.

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RE:

are there any really free genealogy sites or are they all scams?

Ive spent hours looking for free sites but when you get into them they all seem to want money from you! really annoying! why arent they just up front to start with instead of lying to you?

Get a No Cost Background Check Scan at https://bitly.im/aOkkp

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 background check.

None are scams; but some are more valuable to some people than others. Someone has already suggested FamilySearch.org which has a lot of records and is absolutely free. They are adding to it all the time. Ancestry.Com isn't free but many public libraries have a subscription to it you can use for free.

Now on the above websites or ANY website you must not take as absolute fact what you see in family trees until you verify the information with documents/records. They are subscriber submitted not by some experts who go around willy nilly doing the family history of others. Even when you see the absolute same information on the same people from many different subscribers that doesn't mean the information is accurate as too many people copy without verifying. Actually if you just happen to find any of your family in an online tree and you see wrong information those that run the websites will tell you that is between you and the other subscriber They don't get involved. It would costly for them a fortune to hire people to verify all the information their subscribers submit.

The above 2 websites have lots of records in addition to family trees. When I go into Ancestry.Com after I got under Search which is on the left then on the next page I go under Old Search which is on the right toward the top in very small fonts. I feel the format of this Old Search is far superior to their New Search and and to the format of FamilySearch.org. I like to use both websites as sometimes one will have a record the other one doesn't.

However before you go to websites you should get as much information from living family as possible. Find out who has any old family bibles, old family photos, old birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can be just as helpful if not more so than civil records. Interview your senior family members and tape them if they will let you. Chances are they will get into telling stories of days gone by you wouldn't write down but in those stories there just might be clues. If you go back periodically and listen to the tapes again while doing research you just might hear things you didn't hear the first time around.

Go to a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City they have the world's largest genealogical collection. If you happen to find Information in their database you would like to view and print off a copy of the original document they can order microfilm for you to view for a reasonable fee. I have never had them to try and convert me nor have I heard of them doing that to anyone else that has used their resources. A lot of their volunteers are nor Mormon. Just use the following link to find the nearest Mormon FHC.

https://familysearch.org/locations

There are tens of thousands of free sites useful to genealogists. Resources will vary depending on where and when your ancestor lived, what records they left behind, and what is available for that place/time. Not everything is online and/or free. Some are genealogy sites, some are archives, some are libraries. All have some kind of information of genealogical value. But, only if they have the information you're looking for. Most are not the huge databases like Ancestry.uk or FindMyPast that will be useful for most people. The vast majority are very specific. The best approach is to think about what information you want, what document might contain that information, and where that record might be. The location or website will vary for each record. I've found Georgia's Virtual Vault, Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, and Canada's Archives to be really helpful for me. They won't help you if your ancestors didn't live in the times/places these sites have records for.

Information of genealogical value often has a commercial value, intellectual property rights, and a cost attached to storing and distributing the information. In the U.K. it's quite common for the rights to distribute civil records to be owned by a commercial company. This happens in other places to, but it's much more common in the U.K. Maintaining a website ain't free. It's just paid for by someone else, like the LDS church or your friendly local genealogical society.

Some helpful starting places:

http://www.cyndislist.com/ (START with How To and Genealogical Standards and Guidelines, has UK information)

https://www.familysearch.org/ (has UK information)

http://www.deathindexes.com/ (U.S. site, but gives you an idea of what to look for)

http://www.censusfinder.com/ (has UK information)

http://www.findagrave.com/ (not records, but great for finding leads; has UK information)

http://www.genuki.org.uk/ (specializes in U.K. information)

Here -- Many of us have resources or knowledge specific to certain documents, times, places, and groups.

Google -- Look for local libraries, archives, agencies, and GenWebs, or websites similar to above for your ancestor's country.

Offline -- Libraries, archives, museums, genealogical societies, Family History Centers (operated by the Mormons), etc. BIG note: FHCs and some libraries have free access to some of the paid subscription sites like Ancestry.

One would think that in the vast expanse of the web there is at least one or a few sites on the subject which are free,informative and user friendly...I dont think a person should be charged any money to learn more about or investigate their geneology,or to learn everything that has been discovered about the interesting topic.My mom looked into her family heritage and learned a great deal about geneology when working at the city library...perhaps that is what you should do if you havent already...wish you luck.

You may be clicking on the ads, or the sponsored results if you are using Google.

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. Among them (without http://)/

www.cyndislist.com - 250,000 links, all categorized.

www.familysearch.org - The Mormons. Gazillions of records.

wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com - Roots Web World Connect - 600,000,000+ entries

usgenweb.org - Sites for every county in every state in the USA

vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/ - California Death Index, 9,366,786 records

www.findagrave.com - 83 million records

genforum.genealogy.com - Query boards for every county in every state, and thousands of surnames.

boards.ancestry.com - The other Query board site; counties and surnames too.

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com Roots Web Mailing List Archive - Over 30 million messages

> Ive spent hours looking for free sites

If you had spent 10 minutes here looking through the resolved questions, you would have come across several dozen links.

There are 10,543 questions in this category with the word "free" in them.

Angel A,

I don't know of even one business that is "upfront". Of course, look at all politicians, all doctors, all lawyers, and all auto mechanices/salesmen.

Just because they don't say "upfront" that they are going to charge you doesn't make it a scam.

Yes, there are free sites: some want you to donate time (and effort) before you get to use their site, and all kinds of situations.

Ancestry.com has some stuff for free; they have free trials; and they are available for free at some public libraries.

There are sites such as www.familysearch.org. Try www.cyndislist.com. Try to find others by clicking on "Search Y! Answers".

Of course, if you do not have info re all 14 of your most recent ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents) you are wasting your time on the net, so get out your birth cerficate and start looking for more documents.

Free Ancestry Websites Uk

They are commercial businesses and advertise/market using loss leaders to get your business.......... like any other business...........BUT websites free or fee are not really the way to research your ancestry, as websites don't have all the records in fact they have very few as ONLY images of the records ar real, EVERYTHING else is only a clue about where to look..................

100% free and will help you get started the right way, you never pay, you don't have to enter your card and they don't harvest your details and sell them......................... you can download free FH software, lots of links, a UK based website so lots of what you are looking for.............. http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhom...

Also library is free, also has free access to ancestry.com if you feel you have to use it, rcords office is free and full of real records........................