I'm trying to research my dads side of the family and nobody seems to know much about them so I'm needing to find some websites to look up information (free). Or where should I start my dad and grandfather are now passed going to send my grandmother a letter to see if she knows much. Thank you
It's not free, but fairly reasonable and the best one-www.ancestry.com
I don't know that there is a free one...The Church of Latter Day Saints has a lot of genealogy resources, but not sure if those are easy to access or not.
Good luck!
Actually, my husband did a free 14-day trial on ancestry.com and found a ton on his family including old pictures and emails from others who had done the research on the family and posted it on the site.
I do believe that is the leading site for this type of research:)
Someone already mentioned the Church of Latter-day Saints; they DO have a free website (they also have geneology centers located all over the place; see if there's one in your city - I have a girlfriend who raves about it as an excellent source; I haven't gone yet, but as soon as my baby starts kindergarten....).
You'd also be surprised how much information you can sometimes get by simply googling the person you're looking for. Especially if you have unusual names. I've found that by going "side-to-side" instead of just "up-and-down" (that is, using siblings and cousins as well as direct line of descent), I get better results. After all, why search for "John" when you've got his brother "Umphrey" to go with? They have the same parents (at least one, anyway), and if it gets you a clue to the next generation back, well, there you go.
Happy searching!
A friend of mine is really good at researching this kind of stuff, I have a list of websites she gave me, I'll find them and pass them along to you. She's gotten a lot of good info from cemeteries/headstones. There are some sites that you can view headstones online. Also she recommends preparing a list of questions and taping an interview with older relatives.
