How to Access Public Family Trees
Family trees, a simpler term for genealogy records, record a family's heritage over many generations. These records are established by compiling birth, baptismal, death certificates, marriage licenses and other census documentation. Some of the most extensive family trees can extend hundreds of years into the past and span across states, countries and continents. With the help of a few public resources and a bit of background on your immediate family, you'll soon be discovering branches of your family tree.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Visit your local library. Public library archives are a particularly useful source for genealogy records if you know that your family has resided in one place for a long period of time. With the advent of digital archiving, you can easily search massive newspaper databases for past obituaries, marriage announcements or articles involving your family name. Librarians also may be able to help you with more specific searches, in addition to referring other resources.
-
2
Inquire at your county and state genealogical society. Depending on the size of your county, it may have an established genealogical society that is charged with recording and archiving local marriages, births and deaths. Most states also have genealogical departments of the same nature. Although these societies can be contacted by phone, written to, or faxed, many of their databases have been made accessible to the public on the Internet.
-
-
3
Contact or visit The National Archives. Easily the most extensive archive of American genealogy and family history, the National Archives is your source for immigration, emigration, passport and passenger records. This source is invaluable if you wish to learn about the movement of your family over time. Much research can be done on the National Archives website, but there are visitable locations in most states.
-
4
Join an online genealogy research website. There are a vast number of websites that specialize in tracking down, organizing and displaying your extensive family tree if you sign up as a member. This option takes the work out of searching for your family history while providing you control over the results, including how far back the search extends, which geographic regions are included and the formatting of the family tree.
-
5
Access family history through FamilySearch. The Church of Latter-Day Saints hosts FamilySearch, which is one of the largest genealogy organizations in the world. It is free for the public to use. The resources can be accessed online or at more than 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries. The centers offer access to a collection of 2.5 million microfilms from more than 100 countries, and there are volunteers available to help you learn how to use the resources available and get you started.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
All records regarding family history and genealogy are available to the general public at no cost, so do not be duped into paying for access to them. When you pay for membership at a third-party research site you are paying for the work involved in collecting, organizing and publishing your family tree, not the records used for compiling it.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit family tree image by Judy Ben Joud from Fotolia.com
