3 Responses for "Where can I search my family’s ancestors for free online?"

1. braves squaw November 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am 1

   rootsweb.com and familysearch.org are free.

   If you have any family members (mother, grandmother, aunt or great-aunt, father, grandfather, uncle or great-uncle, direct cousin) who are already members of either organization, you can apply thru their research, as long as you are a blood relative of their Confederate Veteran.

   P.S.
   If you are less than 19 years old, you will have to apply to
   The Children of the Confederacy.
   References :

2. Adair November 28th, 2008 at 11:52 am 2

   Chances are, most all Americans has an ancestor that was in the Civil War. It is not only a matter of finding the ancestor, but you have to prove they are your ancestor with a paper trail, meaning your birth certificate showing your parents, their birth certificate showing their parents, and back as far as birth certificates can take you, then use census records from that point to show who lived with whom and who married whom and who had what kids. For most states, the most difficult year to show family relations is the year 1890 as almost all of the 1890 census records were lost in a fire back in the 1920’s.

   I understand that as a minor, you do not have a credit card to pay for genealogy sites. However, getting the copies of the paper records you will need will not be free. You will have to order copies of everyone’s birth certificates from whatever state each person was born in, which there is ALWAYS a fee. Birth certificates are not free. However, you should have yours already, your mom or dad (whichever one has the civil war ancestor) should also have theirs already. If your grandparents are alive, they may have theirs. If your grandparents were born before 1930, then they will also appear on census records. Once you get to that point, you do not need birth certificates…….only census records. Getting the census records may be easier, as Ancestry.com has them all on their site, but the site is not free. However, many local libraries pay for a subscription that their patrons can use for free, so if your local library has access to that website that you can use for free, then that is half the battle for you.
   References :

3. bastropcc November 28th, 2008 at 12:41 pm 3

   When I start researching a new family line I go to these pages:

   http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/ (civil war rosters)
   http://www.nara.gov (military records)
   http://www.familysearch.org
   http://www.gencircles.com
   http://www.rootsweb.com
   http://www.usgenweb.com
   http://www.census-online.com/links/
   http://www.findagrave.com/
   http://www.google.com
   
   References :