Just a Question

[shortstuffO3]

Does anybody know where i could go to do a complete search to trace my ancestors and make a family tree and all that stuff. It really interest me and i would really like it if i could start as soon as possible. Everywhere that i go to look and see to start a family tree it all costs money to do a search. So if anybody knows a website that is free to those searches, i would really appreciate it if i could find one. Thanks!

[dot.hawkes]

The first step in starting your research is to learn as much as you can about your living relatives, how they fit into your family, what side they belong to, find out who is the eldest living relayive and arrange to visit them or write to them and ask them who they remember from their childhood, where the family lived, worked, what religion they were, where they went to school, what was everyone called etc. This is true family history. Looking at records on a computer screen is only part of the research and can be very inaccurate unless you have the information that verifies it, if you just want to do Genelaogy and go back generation after generation, you can, but it is just names and dates. Find out your family history for yourself by communication with your living relatives first, it isn't a race, the facts won't change, but when you find them, you will know if they are correct or not by what you gain from your own family.

[CheekyChops]

Researching your family tree isn't a cheap hobby. To do it online you need to pay subscriptions or buy credits to gain access to the websites you will need. You will incur travel costs when you need to visit the Records Office in the area your ancestors are from and you will also need to fork out for birth marriage and death certificates at some point, at �7 each.

There is no way you can do it for free and for your tree to be accurate. It is also not something that you can do in a couple of weeks, it can takes years and years, depending on the depth of your research.

And its NOT as easy as they make it look on the television (Who Do You Think You Are springs to mind!)

[dot.hawkes]

Cheeky chops is so right, I started in 1987 and actually tutored the subject for 5 years and I still have areas that are not complete. It is essential to be accurate and this is the complex part that many online researchers miss. You have to remember that in the 1990s the YTS scheme used the cheap labour to transcribe original indexes to a database and this alone can have caused errors and omissions.

[lindapinda]

I'm really horrified to hear that dot!! I used to work in a registration office,and, though we had some "rare" characters...I hate to think,that accurate records are ruined by a workforce who have a pure indifference to the history they are dealing with.

[2243]

Genes reunited is the best geneolgy site I know of.