Best genealogy sites???

[suew203]

Hello fellow genealogists
I am not exactly new to Genealogy, but I have been asked by a couple of people if I could do a family tree for them. I already have a subscription to Ancestry, and I wondered whether any "seasoned professionals" could offer me some advice on which sites they use and have found to be the best, and which to avoid at all costs. I took out a subscription recently to a Military Genealogy site and found that it has been a total waste of money, so I really want to avoid that trap in future.
I look forward to receiving your responses and would welcome e-mails

[Jan1954]

Hi Sue,

I love all free sites

For a small investment, you can find loads of the free sites via these products.

[Peter Goodey]

You wouldn't decide to spend a day at the Barsetshire Record Office if you didn't have any interest in Barsetshire, would you? By the same token, don't use a non-free website unless there's something specific you want from them. For example, if you want army service records, go to FMP. If you want London parish registers, go to Ancestry (unless it's Westminster, in which case go to FMP )

If it's National Archives data you're after, the website will have a link to official online "partners". Don't forget that only a small proportion of the data that you will need is going to be online. Genealogy hasn't yet stopped being an "out and about" hobby.

Don't offer to do anything for friends without discussing money first. Don't let people get the impression that it's not going to cost them anything. That's just storing up trouble for yourself.

[jac65]

Hi

If you are going to do research for someone else then make sure they understand that they might not like everything you find, Also, if a friend asks you to do their partners tree, make sure you get the partners approval (and direct from the partner, not your friend saying it is OK) as you may uncover something that the partner has kept from your friend. If there are secrets between people the last thing you want to do is get involved.

Andy

[spison]

Hi Sue,
I consider half the fun of researching is that I am 'Johnny on the spot' when I make any discoveries. I understand that paying for research is necessary if you can't get to the place but if they are local (and here I mean UK) and the research is local, why do they want you to research for them? Could it actually be that they just want advice and guidance. You can easily give that. You never know, you may create another addict who can genuinely talk about what they have discovered (and you can be one of the few who listens with appreciation!)
Jane

[Coromandel]

Before you subscribe to anything else, check what is available through your local library. In Oxfordshire, for example, we're lucky enough to have free access to worldwide Ancestry as well as Findmypast. Also, library members can use their library tickets to log in from home to many reference sites such as the British Library Nineteenth Century Newspaper collection and the Times Digital Archive.

Even though I don't have my own subscriptions to Ancestry/FMP, I still use them a lot at home, as you can still do searches and extract some information from the results without coughing up any money.

If you read through some recent postings on this site you will get an idea of the sites people turn to most often for information. Here are some of the ones that spring to mind, but this list isn't intended to be comprehensive at all: just the ones that sprang to my mind first (and very heavily focused on England/Wales). These sites should all be easy to locate using Google so I haven't given website addresses. This is just a tiny selection of what's out there.

GRO indexes
For 1837 up to the 1940s/1950s try the free site FreeBMD first (volunteers are working on updating it all the time). For more modern entries or when FreeBMD's servers are struggling use Ancestry or FMP.

Local registrars' indexes
Some local registrars have put their own indexes online. These can contain more information than the GRO index: for example, they might show the exact place of a marriage, rather than just a registration district, or show mother's maiden name or age at death before this info is available in the GRO index. Cheshire BMDs was the first of these local BMD sites but there are many others now. See the UKBMD site for a listing.

Parish registers
There are more and more scans of parish registers online in various places. Some are free, e.g. Norfolk and Cornwall ones on FamilySearch, or Lincolnshire ones on Lincs to the Past. Oh, and the CityArk site for the Medway area of Kent. Others are either pay-per-view or subscription (e.g. London, West Yorkshire, Dorset and Warwickshire registers on Ancestry, or Essex ones on the Essex Record Office site).

Check whether there are online parish clerks for the parish of interest. Some counties have very active OPCs with wonderful searchable transcripts online (the ones I am most familiar with are Lancashire and Cornwall). Don't forget FreeReg either. FamilySearch has what was on the IGI (minus the often spurious member-submitted entries) plus a lot more. Entries are often just partial transcripts but it's still a great finding aid as long as you're aware of the limitations of its coverage.

Some counties are very poorly covered by online transcripts/indexes, but have very active family history societies that publish data on CD etc. Many such products are available from online shops, either on the relevant FHS's own website or via specialist online genealogy shops, such as Parish Chest.

Non-conformist records
For pre-1837 non-conformist records, there's the BMD Registers site (a pay site, though there is free access at Kew). You can see scans of original records here, which often contain a lot more information than the basic indexes on FamilySearch.

Miscellaneous

• British-Genealogy Forum, of course!
• British History Online
• British Newspaper Archive
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• Deceased Online
• Documents Online (soon to be merged with the National Archives' new catalogue): here you can download all sorts of documents from the National Archives, for a fee (but free at Kew). There's also the National Archives' 'Digital Microfilm' programme whereby a growing variety of documents can be downloaded free, as very large PDF files.
• GENUKI, for advice and information
• Historical Directories
• 'London Gazette' and its sister sites
• (The) National Archives
• National Library of Wales
• National Library of Scotland
• Old Bailey Proceedings Online
• Old Maps
• Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
• Scotland's People

You may find clues in overseas sources such as the wonderful Trove (for Australian newspapers, free!) or the Library and Archives Canada databases (e.g. Soldiers of the First World War - CEF). For the British in India see FIBIS and the India Office Family History Search.

Don't forget just trying searches using Google or Google Books for specific names/places.

As Peter has already said, what's online still represents only a fraction of what documents survive in local/national archives. There are many online catalogues, finding aids and research guides to help you plan your research trips, but also there are many catalogues that aren't online yet. Try record offices' own websites and the excellent (but I think no longer updated?) Access to Archives (A2A) site. Other catalogues/finding aids include the Hospital Records database and the Manorial Documents Register. There can be important collections of archives in museums and in university libraries so check their websites too.

That's it for now! I am sure I will think of some more just after I've hit "Submit Reply", but it's time to think about supper now.