Why Pay More: How to Access Free Genealogy Databases

Free Online Genealogy Databases

There are many subscription genealogy services available online.  These can get expensive and may not offer everything you need.  You can get access to the same information for free if you are savvy online, although you may need to work through several online sites to locate it.  If you are willing to do just a bit more work, you'll be able to find plenty of free genealogy databases.

Public records are a great place to start when looking for free genealogy databases.  First, look for birth, death and marriage records.  These are typically kept through the county where the person lived.  If you are unsure, you may need to complete some preliminary research first to determine the location.  Public records will show birth records, which will give you the mother's maiden name along with the father's name.  The records may also indicate where the family was living at the time of the birth and the occupations of the father and mother.  The birth record may also list how many children were already born before this child was born.  Death certificates are also filed by county.  These will show the date of birth, date of death, spouse's name and occupation, as well as the address.  Even more importantly the death certificate will state a cause of death.  All of this information helps in piecing families together. 

Searching marriage records is also often fruitful.  The marriage license or marriage certificate will show the given names of the husband and wife and will list the date of the ceremony.  The certificate may also list the ages of the bride and groom or may even list the birth dates.  The further you need to go back in time, the harder it may be to find these items online.  While most of this information was once put onto microfiche and it now needs to be entered into computers.  In these cases, most information is still available the old fashioned way – by a request through the mail.  Sometimes a small fee is necessary.

You can also find free genealogy databases through the local newspapers.  You can often get access to the local newspaper archives where you can search for information.  You may come up with marriage announcements, death announcements and even news articles.  When you find these items, print them out or save them in a file on your computer for future reference. 

The census is taken every ten years and you can find access to the public listing of past censuses.  They provide valuable information including the address, the names of the adults in the household, how many children, ages of people in the household and occupations of the adults. 

If the relatives you are looking for were in the military you can access the public military records to locate information such as date of entry and date of dismissal, along with rank. Many specialty sites offer information about particular occupations.  Once you know some information about a person, you are able to use that to locate even more information.  Land ownership records, property sales and these types of public records are all available online.  Immigration records show when people entered the country. 

Accessing Online Forums

In addition to online free genealogy databases, there are also online forums that link many different people together who are searching for the same information.  For examples, there are forums about specific last names.  You can access these forums to see what information others have posted as well as what information others are looking for.  There are often connections that can be made using this information.