Free General Genealogy Websites
- Access Genealogy.
- FamilySearch.
- HeritageQuest Online.
- Olive Tree Genealogy.
- RootsWeb.
- USGenWeb.
- California Digital Newspaper Collection.
- Chronicling America.
HeritageQuest Online is a comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources—rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, convenient research guides, interactive census maps, and more. In-library or remote access is offered for free to all Audubon Library card holders.
"Heritage Quest Online is available to patrons of authorized institutions. Your institution will assign you a barcode or other membership ID to access online resources like HeritageQuest Online.
Did you know that Ancestry.com is available for free in thousands of libraries in the U.S' You can't create a tree, or post messages on message boards. You can't sit in your jammies and work on your family (please don't sit in your jammies in the library!).
Is using FamilySearch really free? Yes, FamilySearch really is free. Originally intended for Church members, FamilySearch resources help millions of people around the world discover their heritage and connect with family members.
Get to Know Your Family Tree.
- Take a Look. Go to and sign in. View your tree in portrait view (pictured).
- Add More. If you have less than 3 generations, go to to ?ll things in.
- Search and Link. Click on an ancestor's name in the Family Tree, then on Person.
The best free alternative to Ancestry is Gramps, which is both free and Open Source. Other interesting free alternatives to Ancestry are WikiTree.com (Free), MyHeritage (Freemium), FamilySearch.org (Free Personal) and webtrees (Free, Open Source).
Creating a Free Ancestry® Account
- Click here.
- Enter your first name, last name, and email address.
- Create a password and re-enter the same password in the Confirm Password field.
- Click Continue.
- Enjoy your Ancestry account!
To see a whole tree or save someone to your tree, click Tools in the top-right corner and select View in Tree or Save to Tree. To contact the tree owner, click their username at the top of the tree or profile page.
For the monthly fee to Ancestry you get access to vast databases of genealogical records and information. So if you're building a family tree, it's a treasure trove, and very worth it. If you're not building a family tree, and not doing genealogical research, it's probably not worth it.
The discontinued One World Tree has been replaced by Ancestry.com's much improved Family Trees, a much improved database that contains family trees submitted to Ancestry by users. These trees can change over time as users edit, remove, or otherwise modify the data in their trees.
Ancestry Library's Family Tree creation service is unavailable through the Library Edition, but that does not mean you cannot compose a family tree. There are several online sites that allow for the creation of free family trees, and can be used to manually track the names and information you find on Ancestry Library.
Combined DNA Index System
It's not currently possible to split family trees on Ancestry®, but there are two ways to get similar results: duplicating your tree, and saving people from one tree to another. For help merging your tree, see Merging Ancestry® Family Trees.
All right, to get access to Ancestry through the library, go to carnegielibrary.org and look for the main search bar. Make sure “This Site” is selected, and then type in the words: 'Ancestry' and 'Library. ' Click the purple magnifying glass to search.
You can now access Ancestry Library Edition at home using your Devon Libraries or Torbay Libraries membership card. You can quickly and simply search the records from the comfort of your own home. Ancestry Library Edition makes tracing your family history easy and accessible for all.
Fold3™ Library Edition by Ancestry provides convenient access to US military records, including the stories, photos and documents of the men and women who served. It contains millions of records from world-class archives, many of which are exclusively available on Fold3.
All Access
- Monthly $49.99.
- 6 months $199.
- 12 month $389.
Ancestry is a subscription database available free-of-charge from any NARA location nationwide. It offers searchable ancestor databases of over 600 million names, as well as specialized databases, including census images. Ancestry.com is available to individual researchers by subscription.
There is still a strong and growing collection in Ancestry Library Edition. But, newspaper titles offered by ProQuest are not available in the Library Edition. The collection contains both full text and/or abstracting/indexing access to the newspaper titles.
If you're an experienced and resourceful Ancestry user who's interested in helping others, we invite you to apply to become an Expert. The application process includes taking a short quiz covering various aspects of Ancestry products.
Title Ancestry plus Other Title AncestryPlus Summary. Comprehensive source of information for conducting genealogical and local history research. Includes digitized images of the United States Federal Census from 1790 forward, the American Genealogical Biographical Index, and Passenger and Immigration Lists Index.
