Favorite Free Genealogy Websites

Scanned photo of my Great Grandfather as Martial of the Fireman's Parade in Biloxi 

   
  When working at home on various genealogy projects, I have chosen to work my way through some free websites first before committing to some paid websites.  I have been pretty successful in finding death dates, and other random records through these various websites.  Here is my list of the top  four.

  1. Roots Web is a offshoot websites run by Ancestry.com.  Similar to Ancestry, you can post any of your found information for free.  I was able to find out more information from this site about a offshoot of my maternal side of the family that traveled throughout the midwest before ending up in Mississippi. There are hyperlinks throughout their "Family Tree" search, and also a great search engine for other archival materials.

       2.  Family Search is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints.  It has free links to       
basic records from the U.S. Census and Social Security Death Index.  It is a clean site, and very easy to search.

      3.  The USGen Web Project is the hub website for each states own Gen Web projects.  Each county within a state's portal is maintained by volunteers who upload various records such as cemetery lists and marriage records.  However, using this website is a bit like falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland where you do not know what you are going to find.  

       4.  Find a Grave is another volunteer based website.  You can search by name, cemetery, state, and county to look for a grave site of past ancestors.  Each record can include photographs, links to neighboring plots, and transcriptions of the writing on the stones.  
Bonus:  I also like to checkout the individual county records when I am looking for something in a particular place.  Library, chancery clerk, and church websites can be gold mines for records and indexes.  A simple Google search for that county will usually do the trick.  

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