Links - researching your family tree

[Carolyn]

I thought it would be nice to put some links in the scrapbook section as a sticky.

So if you have any good links for sites, including old maps and pics I shall summarise them and add them to a sticky.

The list so far:

Good free resources:
http://www.uk-genealogy.org.uk/index.html
some free and some not, but enough to help you.
http://ancestry.co.uk/
http://www.familyhistoryonline.net/
http://www.genuki.co.uk
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
http://www.familysearch.org/
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/
http://www.cyndislist.com


Cornwall only:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... 41eni.html
http://www.cornwalleng.com/


Limited free stuff, maybe worth a look:
http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
http://www.kindredkonnections.com/

General Links page:
http://www.genealogy-links.co.uk/html/freebies.html

Great search builder for google
http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/
_________________

[Carolyn]

I just thought I would add to this thread....

Did you kow that many libraries around the country offer free access to Ancestry.co.uk worldwide? You can send the images to home and then save/ print them. I have the Uk years membership but went to Mk library the other day and found details about a great great uncle that went to the US - found the ship passenger list and him on the census, and it didn't cost me a penny.

[Mary]

Can I add this site ? It's free membership, very helpful and friendly

www.ancestryaid.co.uk

[LisaB]

If you're looking for birth/marriage/Death certs/OPRs/Census etc for Scotland, the best place is http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Most (maybe even all - not sure) of the other UK sites only provide records for England and Wales.

Hope this helps

Lisa xoxo

[Carolyn]

I thought I would bump this old post as a few are talking about family tree stuff - thought it would be nice to chat about it. There are more and more free records out there - although vary between locations. As many of mine come from Cornwall there are Parish Records for free now.

I use RootsMagic for recording my data - you can see the tree here:

http://familytree.craftsbycarolyn.co.uk ... /hicks.htm

http://familytree.craftsbycarolyn.co.uk/

[LizG]

The Rootsweb mailing lists for surnames or counties are an excellant resource but please note you are not able to ask for information about living people.

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/index.html

If you explore the site you will also find some message boards for surnames; always worth a browse. As are their family trees.

I would just like to offer a warning about putting your family tree info on the internet. Many people have had their trees "stolen" and added to other people's where they have a connection. You might not be too worried about this but if you have living people in the database you might like to think about that.

Ancestry also has lots of useful info, as Carolyn said, and there are a lot of family trees available to view, although some people have chosen to keep them private unless you email them. These trees can be very useful guides but I am sure that anyone that has been researching long knows to that any info received from another researcher should be checked to source documentation.

I once found part of my ancestors on a site in Australia; trouble was he had gone wrong somewhere along the way because he had been informed by someone else and he hadn't bothered checking.

Another resource is Family Search http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

Another is Gen Circles http://www.gencircles.com/globaltree/

Don't forget the Records Office for the area you are researching and think of records like Vestry Minutes, Wills, Probate etc

[Kathy]

I've done lots of our family research and have used this site a lot;

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

As it implies in the name it is a free searchable site for birth/marriage/death references.
To get started just click 'search'

[LizG]

Another free site - or rather sites, as there are individual sites per county (or most of them) are the sites by the Online Parish Clerk.

Just google opc and your county

e.g. opc sussex gives http://www.sussex-opc.org/

[Carolyn]

I see that ancestry are doing free stuff everyday for the next 15 days:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/uk/2011/09/30 ... ch=Inbound

October 1st

[Carolyn]

there are free census records on the US ancestry at the moment. Also I think there is 1911 free on ancestry.co.uk - I think I saw it advertised yesterday

[LizG]

I think the two main players for subscription services are Ancestry and Find My Past. Most people seem to find ancestry has the best coverage but that Find My Past has a better indexing system.

Genes Reunited is another subscription service; you either love it or hate it. You can get bombarded with notifications of people who might possibly be related but that relation can purely be the surname or some tenuous link.

Lost Cousins is free and you can put in rellies you have found on specific census records. You then hope that Lost Cousins can match those with other people's entries.

[Carolyn]

It was really to say that all the US census are free until the 3rd Sept

[LizG]

Ancestry.com have some useful research guides

http://www.ancestry.com/cs/Satellite?ch ... 5125565120

[LizG]

This site is good for explaining what you find on the birth/marriage/death certificates and how to get the most out of that information.

http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/indexbd.htm