Free genealogy databases are becoming increasingly common and loaded with information. Any research of your family tree invariably makes use of these databases to track down ancestors and a host of other related information. It is not very difficult to find out free genealogy databases but there are so many of them that it can become difficult to track them down. The following guide will help you get started.
- Ancestory.com has a World Connect Project that allows people from across the globe to submit their family trees and information, along with the sources. This is one great place to start your search as there is a lot of information available. Since it is posted by users, there is an added advantage of diversity across nations (many databases can be very country specific). There may be a few cases of errors so might want to validate the information here through authentic citations.
- Interment.net maintains records from thousands of cemeteries totaling millions of people from across the world. There are also helpful resources linking to other cemeteries to supplement your research. This is a very helpful resource that you would often use to track dead ancestors.
- WorldGenWeb is an ambitious project that aims to collect a huge amount of genealogical data from all over the world. The best thing is that you would find a lot of information and sources in all countries and not just US, Western Europe and Australia as is the case with many free genealogical databases. Therefore this record can be especially useful for parts of your family tree outside these areas if you think you have gotten stuck somewhere and unable to proceed further on a branch.
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains a website cwgc.org that provides the details of the soldiers from the Commonwealth (and the colonies of UK included) who died during the World Wars. You can thus get lots of information about your ancestors who might have died in the Wars. This can generally be a bottleneck in the tree, and finding such an ancestor can lead to the discovery of a whole branch, so it can get very helpful at times.
- For US citizens and those with a part of their family tree in that country, Heritage Quest Online contains a wealth of information including complete federal census data for more than 200 years. Apart from this, it contains war pension files and other information that would be otherwise difficult to obtain. The only drawback is that it is accessible only through library membership in the United States or through other genealogical societies. Also, the files are present as images and thus it takes more time to search.
It is worthwhile to remember that information not from official sites maintained by governments and libraries should be verified before using it. This should not in any way deter you from using free genealogy databases, however The errors are not all that common and they more often than not at the very least provide a clue and direction for your research. The verification is in most cases only to authenticate your research.
Julia Hanson is an author who has written extensively about genealogy. For more great information free genealogy databases and on how to build a family tree, visit http://www.Build-Family-Tree.com
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