I'm not sure how many of you are into looking up your family history and all that, but I figured I'd give this forum a try :)

I've been working on my family tree for several months now. My mom's side has been pretty difficult, as they have an extremely common surname (yay, Wilson. :| )
But I have managed to trace my paternal grandmother's side all the way back to them coming here from Hungary (or well, Austria-Hungary ;))

I was just curious if any of you knew of any free websites that are helpful in tracing family history. At the moment I'm not able to go buying subscriptions to different websites. School to pay for and all.

International [Hungarian!] websites would be helpful as well... even though I know that's a complete shot in the dark, since I'm not even sure if we HAVE anyone from Hungary lurking bloop anymore ;D


If anyone could help, it would be much appreciated :)

ancestry.com (or .whatever country code) isn't exactly free, but i'd recommend it because it's hooked up with the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints genealogy files, and they're extensive.
there's a free trial (2 weeks, i think) tho i'm not sure how far it will get you. if you find a little spare cash, you can sign up for a membership for a month, which will give you more access. surely you can find a lot of information in a month, collect as much information as you can, and cancel right away.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to use ancestry.com, but I can't right now. I don't have any money ;D
And the "free trial" still requires credit card information. My luck something would get screwed up and I'd be charged and get an overdraft fee :(

I didn't know it was hooked up with their files though, I'll have to toss the idea by my dad and see if he'll pay for it ;D

Thanks!

Not so sure about international sites, exclusively, but rootsweb.com is a site related to ancestry.com, but it has a search engine apart from ancestry. Not concrete documents and such, but names, which is better than nothing at all. you can research full names, some documents, and message boards, which can be filtered through locations or surnames..

Familysearch.org-can be helpful, but sometimes it can give the wrong name, as I've come across in tracing my ggrandmother's line, and I'm currently pissing and moaning about not being able to use ancestry.com..they did have a beta search which was much better, except it has a lot of bugs in it, being new and all, and I can't get it to work for me at the moment.

I google things, a lot. Type in names and dates in different variations and sometimes I luck into a page someone else created or an inquiry someone posted somewhere that pertains to my family..I've got a long way with just this and rootsweb actually.

findagrave.com can be useful and you can search by name, state, county, cemetery name, etc..

And, some states do have limited records available online, mine is one of them but I've noticed many surrounding states do not...some provide scanned pictures of birth, marriage, and death certificates..

Hope some of these might help you :) I know its frustrating to try to research genealogy when you don't have much to work with..but seriously, google can be your best friend here..

Are you still tracing within the US or did you finally make your way out of it? lol. The reason I ask is sometimes states have geneology societies that may be able to give you a little free help. I had someone who had ancestry.com and looked up 4 generations on my dad's side. I found out every one was born in New Mexico or New Mexico territory. Finding this out helped tremendously because now I can use the New Mexico genealogical society to assist me. Problem is my dad's last name is extremely common here (there's a major street and tons of stores by the same name lol) but it's interesting. There are a lot of fights between my aunts and uncle about our heritage. My dad said we were italian/spanish, my aunt said we were spanish/german and my other aunt said we're french/german (which makes no sense because both my aunts and uncle speak castellano...). I'm considering signing up for a month. If I do, I'll do some searching for you! :)

I've got my grandmother's family on my dad's side traced back to when they came to the states (It wasn't that far to go... my great grandparents came here from Hungary, lol.) But as for the rest of the tree, I'm still stuck in the US :(

I wish I knew some sites but I don't but I know a very GOOD FREE psychic [no scams, he's a friend I talk to everyday on yahoo, an aussie actually] that has helped me a ton and has proved himself to be very real by pulling memories that I have told NO ONE and getting them exactly right. I can ask him....

You should really ask at your local city hall or state historical society because often times you can have access (for free) to census reports, birth and death records, marriages, etc.

If you go to a mormon temple/church you can actually ask for assistance in tracing your family history because it's a big part of the Mormon religion to know your roots. I'm sure they'll be happy to help and guide you to appropriate resources.

Although ancestry.com makes the research easy by compiling records into one place, everything they have for display is free and you can find it by doing the ground work.

Good luck :)