How To Find Your Family Tree Online

If you’re looking for your family roots, the Internet is a great platform to search for a wide array of family history records. From official census record, obituary resources and genealogy resources, you’ll find everything you need online. 

If you want to learn more about your family tree, you’ll have a pretty good chance of digging up some related information on the Worldwide Web. The trick to getting the right information online, lies on how you use the available resources, databases and tools. Learn how to verify the facts and dates, and if possible, contact the researcher/s, and help them re-trace their steps. Here are a number of helpful online resources to help you in you family tree search.   

Check Out Obituary Notices

There are many obituary search engines online which can help make the family tree search a much easier one. Your local newspaper’s obituary section may be a good start for finding details. However, if you can’t find anything relevant there, you can do a city, town or county search. Also ensure that you also include an obituary search for siblings and cousins, and other direct descendants.    

Visit Your Local Library 

Your city or town’s public library can also be a nice location for acquiring information on your family history. You can also drop by historical and genealogical societies in your area, or in the cities or towns where your ancestors lived. Go to your public library’s Web page too, and find online indexes, abstracts and published genealogical records. If you can’t find local and family history books online, you may borrow them directly from your local librarian. 

Census Records are Great Resources For Spotting Family history Records

Public census records provide a treasure trove of information on the records of people who lived around the beginning of the 20th Century. In the United States, Canada and United Kingdom, as well as in other countries, public census records are readily available. In most census records, you can easily find living and recently deceased family members listed in the database. Once you find the general records, you can start tracing the family tree back through previous censuses, so that you can add a generation or more to your family tree.  

Search For Information From Online Forums and Message Boards

You can also find interesting tidbits of information about your family’s history from online mailing lists, groups and message boards. You can search the archives of the lists and groups that are related to your surname. These online groups may be able to yield family histories, obituary records and other vital pieces of the genealogical puzzle. Some groups or message boards however, require that you join first, free of charge, before you can begin searching for archived information.      
