by Kellea Croft

Created on: September 13, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2011

Genealogy is the pursuit of your family's heritage and cousins spread across the planet. The net is a great way to connect with other researchers and gaining access to state you don't live in or can travel to.

Finding information online is really easy and there are many sites that are free. Most of these sites have their material submitted by other researchers that may not have thoroughly found the correct information. Beware of what you find and use them as a tool for the proper channels of documentation pursuits.

The number one free online genealogy site is the USGenweb project (www.usgenweb.org) that was kicked off in 1996. It has access to national and state web pages, tombstone transcription site and links to the international associations for research. Each site is individually run by volunteers to give the best information that they can. There are even research assistance in some states through the historical societies willing to lookup census and such information you cannot access from where you are. This service can be free or a small fee for their time.

The Church of Latter Day Saints research webpage (www.familysearch.org) is another free site from their stores of information gathered. You will find a search form at the beginning that will find any information around the world about that name. They also have access to some research assistance, forms and getting started information.

Cousin Connect (www.cousinconnect.com) has researched trees and boards to post queries onto. All the information on this site is generated by others like you, so be sure to use the information wisely. It is a great stop for getting unstumped about what direction to turn. You can get through for most of the countries on this site.

Rootsweb (www.rootsweb.org) is one of the other great genealogy gathering places. You can access trees that others have posted census information, etc. I have found many of my distant cousins through this site and was one of the beginning benchmarks in my search. You can post your own information here for others to benefit from or contact you will their own puzzles.

My heritage (www.myheritage.com/genealogy) has a tree builder you can download, you can build your own family website, message boards, tips and great genealogy humour to make fun of our quests.

A message board site to connect with your other searching your last name is on Genform (www.genform.genealgy.com). Each last name has their own posting site and if it is not there you can begin

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