completely free genealogy sites?

Well one really cool place to start (and I love free as well). Is the public library. Make sure you have a current card with a pin to give you access to any online databases the library subscribes to. I had to go back in to do this part. Your local library lists all of its databases on its website (or should). If you go to the library of course you get free access to ancestry.com. From home most states subscribe to HeritageQuest which will give you census images and a bit more. The other great site is familysearch.org which is the LDS effort. Good luck in your search!

Ancestry.Com isn't free but many public libraries have a subscription to it you can use for free.

Now word of warning. Don't consider what you see in family trees on their website or ANY website as a record. They are subscriber submitted and yes there are definitely errors. Even when you see te absolute same information on the same people from many different subscribers that doesn't mean it is accurate as too many people copy without verifying with records. Both Ancestry.Com and FamilySearch have lots of records. I like to use both as sometimes one will have a record the other one doesn't and vice versa.

However you should first get as much information from living family as possible. Find out who has any old family bibles, old family photos. birth, marriage and death certificates on your ancestors. Also they just might have some old letters written by deceased family members. 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 frequently are clues that might help you break through a brick wall in your research. If you go back periodically and listen to the tapes again while researching you very likely will hear things you didn't hear the first time around.

Now you mentioned you want to find what names are in your family. Genealogy is not about tracing surnames. Surnames do not have a family history. Your ancestors with the surnames do. When surnames were assigned or taken in Europe during the last millennium it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to wind up with a different surname and still each could have shared his with others with no known relationship. The purpose originally was not to identify a man as a member of a family but just to better identify him, frequently for taxation purposes. Too many men with the same given name in the same town or village and they had to have a way of sorting them out.

Also don't expect any surname to have the same spelling in the same family down through the generations.

Go to your public library and find out what they have.

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 find any thing in their database you would like to view and print a copy of the original documents they can order microfilm for a reasonable fee. They have microfilm readers at the Family History Centers. 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 not Mormon. Use the following link to find the nearest Mormon FHC.

You need to do the ground work before you use the internet as a tool only. If someone has told you that they found their family tree online please tell that person if they have not verified the information with records/documents they don't know what they have found is accurate or not. Genealogy websites are not a good place to find information on the living as that can lead to identity theft.

Edit: Genealogy websites can be a good convenience if you use them as a tool. Before the internet people frequently had to travel a few thousand miles to get information on their family. That is far more costly than an internet subscription to a site like Ancestry.com. Now their ads are very misleading, particularly when they show someone pointing to a family tree. Also no way are all records online. However they do have a lot of records. Even when they don't have the original images once you find the record on an index you can write the county courthouse, state library or whatever and get a copy of the original for a reasonable fee. Some might charge as little as $3 and some might charge say $10.

There are tens of thousands of free websites useful for genealogists. Not all are genealogy sites per se. Which one is helpful for you will depend on where and when your ancestor live, what records they left behind, if those records survived, and who has them now. Most are organized by place, era, and topic or type of record. Most free sites, with some great exceptions, offer transcriptions and information more than actual records and images. Without knowing what you're looking for exactly, we can only give you a few general ones. It wouldn't make sense to tell you about Georgia's Virtual Vault if your ancestors didn't live in Georgia, USA from about 1700-1920, for example. None are worth a lick without following proper research methods.

Some helpful starting places:

http://www.cyndislist.com/ (START with How To and Genealogical Standards and Guidelines, they also have guides and links for specific places)

https://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.censusfinder.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

http://www.deathindexes.com/ (U.S.)

http://www.archives.gov/

U.K.: GENUKI, FreeBMD, FreeCen, FreeReg

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, church records, 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.com and librarians or volunteers that are happy to help.

Unless someone in your family has done all the work and willed it to you, there is absolutely no "right" to free information. Your genealogy is uniwue to you and your full siblings. This is a mighty small market. On the other hand, making the information available requires considerable labor, paper, ink, toner, electricity, data storage, research skills, web design skills, research and travel expenses, cost of records, and other expenses. To expect anyone to do this for just you and a sibling without asking for a contribution is just unreasonable. Even government records have a fair share price.

If you have Scottish ancestors you may find Scotland's people website to be useful. There is no fee BUT you will have to pay a small amount to view the record and possibly some more to download a copy of the record you want. However, It is not necessary to get a copy of the certificates and etc.

Last time I was on it I believe it was £6 for 30 points. Most records were a point to access although some were 5 points. Once you have bought a record it will be stored in your account and you can view it at any time.

"i think everyone has the right to find out about their past without having to pay for it" .....and it is available but not at your convience on your computer in your home.... these commerical websites are businesses they pay money to scan and transcribe records and it is a business so they can earn money and make a profit...yoo take you foundation work which you have already done, again which is free and visit your local records office, where you can look at records to your hearts content for free, your libray where you can find other 'records' and of course many libraries also have access to fee websites for free should you wish to use them........

Researched for 30 years and have never subscribed to websites, but remember websites are ONLY a clue in the main about where to look to find thereal records, they will not find your ancestry as there are NOT all records online and ONLY images online of the records are real NOTHING else, it is only a clue familysearch is one of the main ones which is free and does have lots of images

However before you rush to the internet and start looking for websites to find your ancestors.

Do your groundwork first or you just won't know who you are looking for, where they are from and if who you do find are your ancestors or not. Read this first, http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhom... then.....

Collect all the information you have in your own home and in your living relations homes is the first place to start , its free and it will encourage your family to look for more and help you, it teaches you the principles and good habit of record research and the details you can find on records while there are still people alive to ask further questions of, which helps you later on as you are familiar with records, understand what can be found on them, you understand the importance of citing your research to prove what you have found and can generally see very clearly the very basic mistakes/errors that many people make by only trusting online resources, especially when one mistake can mean you are no longer researching your family. ...this will get you back up to 5 generations, then once completed the links page will help further....................

People ask that question 3 - 14 times a day here. The answers we top 10 copy and paste, day after day, to those questions, are full of links and tips. The fact you didn't look in the resolved questions first says your research skills are not as good yet as they should be.

> i think everyone has the right to find out about their past without having to pay for it.

Every web site in the world costs money. The people who own them either donate the site to the world and pay for it themselves (The LDS church and I do that; their bill is higher, because their web site is bigger. Mine has better jokes), sell advertising or sell subscriptions. The fact you didn't realize that says that your reasoning skills are not as good yet as they should be.

All in all, you are not yet ready to do a decent job as a genealogist. I'm not trying to insult you, just to suggest you take up a different hobby. If you were 12 and weighed 110 pounds, you couldn't start as fullback for Ohio State, but, if you ate healthy and exercised a lot, you might be able to at 20 or 21. Pay attention in History class, learn to research and take the hobby up when you are older.

Familysearch.org.

Sorry I didn't give you a lot of information but, you asked about a specific thing and since this is asked

all the time and it in the resolved questions section, I just gave you the one site I know is free. One clue living people are not put into a chart that is going on line - it is considered unethical.