Free vs. Paid Genealogy Sites: What You Actually Need
How far you can get without paying, the free back doors into paid databases, and when a subscription is worth it.
Online Sites & Family Trees
Getting the most from genealogy websites and online trees, free and paid.
How to Use Online Family Trees Without Copying Their Mistakes
Other people's trees can be great leads or the fastest way to fill your tree with errors. How to tell the difference.
Social Security Records for Genealogy: SSDI, Applications and the Numident
How to use the Social Security Death Index, order a copy of an ancestor's SS-5 application, and search the free Numident records that often name parents.
Your Public Library: The Most Underrated Tool in Genealogy
Your library card can unlock paid genealogy databases for free, plus local history collections, interlibrary loan and expert reference help. Here's how to use all of it.
The Family History Library and FamilySearch Centers
The world's largest genealogy library is free and open to everyone, and its thousands of branches and affiliate libraries unlock records you can't see at home. Here's how to use them, in person or online.
Mastering the FamilySearch Catalog: Records Nobody Has Indexed
A name search covers only a fraction of what FamilySearch holds. The catalog leads you to millions of digitized but unindexed record books, free. Here's how to use it.
Full-Text Search: Finding Ancestors in Handwritten Deeds, Wills and Court Records
Computer handwriting recognition has made millions of unindexed pages searchable for the first time. How FamilySearch's full-text search works, how to search it well, and its limits.
Free Digital Libraries: Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books and More
Millions of county histories, family histories, city directories and old reference books are free online, searchable word for word. Where to find them and how to search them.
Why Can't I Find My Ancestor in the Index? Search Tricks That Work
Misspellings, misread handwriting and transcription errors hide millions of ancestors from name searches. Wildcards, Soundex, sideways searches and browsing will find most of them.
Owning Your Research: Family Tree Software, GEDCOM and Backups
If your tree lives only on a website, you don't fully control it. How to keep your own copy with desktop software and GEDCOM files, and how to back up years of work.
How to Ask for Genealogy Help Online and Get Good Answers
Volunteers on forums, Facebook groups and Reddit solve hard problems every day. How to write a question that gets answered, where to post it, and how to protect living relatives' privacy.
Find the records
Websites and archives for this topic are in our Resource Directory under Major Genealogy Databases.
Other topics
Getting Started 21Census Records 16Birth, Marriage & Death Records 15Church Records 12Cemeteries & Burials 2Newspapers & Obituaries 3Land & Property Records 7Wills, Probate & Court Records 13Tax Records 3Military Records 5Immigration & Naturalization 12DNA & Genetic Genealogy 9Libraries & Archives 8Research in the Old Country 10African American Research 2Research Methods & Evidence 31Brick Walls 11Organizing Your Research 7Online Sites & Family Trees 11