Free Genealogical Research Sites

Free access to newspapers from the National Archives. 1836-1922
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More free newspapers at Newspaperabstracts. New articles added all the time.

Free access to Colorado newspapers.

Free access to California newspapers

The National Archives has a lot of interesting information on people, history, and locations. I found old photos of my hometown.

Elephind  is another free newspaper site.

CyndisList is a great website to jump start your research. There are links for special categories, locations, family trees and more. 

Genealogy Gophers is a library site with 80,000 digital genealogy books (ending in June)

I found a replacement for Gengophers. Link

Hathitrust is another online library site with digital books

Family Search is the LDS site. Volunteers are constantly adding information to this site. You can find census, birth record, marriage records, and more

USGenWeb is divided into states that you are researching. I can only get part of it to work, so am not sure how reliable this site is now.

WorldGenWeb this was another great site that jump started my family research. Volunteers all over the world help putting this site together. 

Genealogy Trails History Group has transcribed obits, military information, prisoners, slave information, and so much more. It is divided into states also with even more information.

If you need help starting out with your tree, I can help for $5. Go to Fiverrs 

If you have a library card from your local library, there are many paid sites that you can access for free, this include HeritageQuest and newspaper sites.

Federal Land Record is offered by the BLM. The original 13 states are not included. 

FindaGrave there are several different cemetery location sites, but this by far is my favorite. Like anything that is built up by volunteers, the information isn't always correct, but there are headstones photographed with birth and death information and sometimes obituaries are added. Great way to find missing information on ancesters. 


My Genealogy Hound has free information but only focuses on certain states. You might get lucky here though

A Group Helping With Roadblocks

NY State Newspapers

New York Public Library has digital collections. They are adding city directories now.

Wikitree is where genealogists have uploaded their family trees. Information here is only as good as the research the member had done, so always double check 

Gen Gathering Volunteers world wide post what they can help with, what resources they have, and what they are looking for.

Linkpendium is a site organized by states. Some of the links off of this does seem to be $ links. I am playing with it to see how good it is.

Digital Public Library of America searches various resources. I have found photos and articles. 

Family History Daily has articles and links that are full of information. 

Genealogy List of Facebook pages. This is an extensive list on a downloadable PDF file

Castle Garden has records for New York immigrants before Ellis Island opened

Civil War website. Has links, photos, diaries, letters, and so much more

DustyDocs has links to a lot of British research sites. Some do not seem to be free but many seem to be helpful

FamilySearchWiki  is a good starting point for world research.

FreeReg for British research

Free UK Records

Records for Somerset England can be found at Southwest Heritage Trust


I never thought of this site as a place to research, but there are books, library access, archived websites, and more. Internet Archive

DAR has searchable records as well as family bibles. 

Lisa Louise Cooke has pinned a lot of great links and information on to Pinterest

An online list of free research sites
List

A resource for finding ship manifests. 


World nobility can be found on Medieval Lands

First Settlers in America



This is not a free site, but it is an important site for genealogists. Ancestorville is a site that "saves" lost photos, papers, books, etc and they are offered to researchers to add to their collections.