I've been doing a little research into my family through FindAGrave.com and it got me interested in a pretty serious genealogy project. I'm planning on making a binder for each one of my great grandparents, since they are the oldest living family I ever got to meet, and branching out from there.

I was wondering if there were other free resources to track down some info. I know I can do a free trial on Ancestry.com and I plan on that once I get all my ducks in a row, so I can maximize my free trial.

I'd prefer online resources. I'm well aware I can go to my library or township halls to get info. I'm looking for stuff I can find when I'm just sitting around at home.

    • chicory [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      familysearch.org is great. Once you have your grandparents entered it will pretty much fill in the rest of your tree. I was shocked.

      Also they tell you during the registration that it doesn't come with any religious baggage, and they aren't lying. I have been on there for awhile and haven't gotten any sort of proselytizing emails or anything.

      • dannoffs [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        I couldn't remember my grandmother's maiden name and it told me to call my mom lol

        • dannoffs [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          Why the fuck do the Mormons have a picture of my great-great-great grandma who died in 1901 in a rural Kentucky town she never left?

          Edit: holy shit it goes back to 1527 on my father's side.

          • NewLeaf
            ·
            2 months ago

            I got back to the teens in terms of years on my great grandmother's side

            • dannoffs [he/him]
              ·
              2 months ago

              Like the 1910s?

              My mom's side only goes back one generation before immigrating out of Poland, but I did some more poking around and on my Dad's side I was able to go back to 1455. How much info they have probably varies a lot based on where your family is from. My dad's side is all southern German and swiss so it makes sense that the Mormons would have a lot of that information.

              • NewLeaf
                ·
                2 months ago

                No, like the year 15.

                To be fair, it's really in the weeds as far as a direct line to me, but still neat. I found out just how much of a colonizer my family used to be. If you go back far enough, I'm related to a Mayflower passenger, pretty directly. Go back even further, but a bit afield of my direct line and I can find royalty from France and England before they were France and England, respectively

                Obviously record keeping can be dodgy, but it's still pretty neat that people can find connections that far back.

                • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  This inspired me to look at mine and see how far back it went, and I've gotten past Henry I and into triple-digit years and it's still going 😳

                  Edit: this sucked away my entire afternoon, but I found out I'm descended from fuckin Boudicca, so it was worth it

                  • NewLeaf
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    I'm surprised there isn't a "God" entry

                      • NewLeaf
                        ·
                        2 months ago

                        That's weird since Adam and eve are speculative at best