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Finding your ancestors for free seems like an impossible task. Everywhere you turn, subscription-based access seems to be the only way to gain the family tree information you’re desperately seeking. But before you take out that second mortgage, take some time to do research on some of these totally free genealogy websites. Each of them has been reviewed and selected by our experts, and at some point winning our annual coveted “Best Websites” award.
This list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it entirely made up of “genealogy” websites. Instead, we’ve provided links and resources to sites that will be most valuable to you as a family historian. Browse the entire list, or jump right to the topic you’re looking for using this handy, linked table of contents.
In This Article:
Free General Genealogy Websites
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Free Canadian Genealogy Websites
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Free Danish Genealogy Websites
Free Norwegian Genealogy Websites
Free Central and Eastern European Websites
Free French Genealogy Websites
Free German Genealogy Websites
Free Jewish Genealogy Websites
Free Genealogy Technology Tools
Free Websites for Sharing Your Genealogy
Free Resources from Libraries and Archives
Free General Genealogy Websites
Access Genealogy
This grab-bag of free genealogy records keeps growing. Click the Databases tab to search data from Southern states, military records, small-town newspapers and the Guion Miller Roll index to Cherokee tribal members. The latter supplements what was already a must-bookmark site if you have Native American roots.
Allen County Public Library
Though based in Indiana, this library’s online reach extends much further—reflecting its status as the nation’s second-richest genealogy library.
FamilySearch
More than 3,000 online collections (and growing) make this the internet’s largest home to free genealogy data, with recent updates spotlighting Italy, South America and US vital records. You can share and record your finds in family trees and a “Memories” gallery, and get research help from the wiki.
HeritageQuest Online
Free to your home computer courtesy of your library card via participating institutions, HeritageQuest is “powered by” (but not owned by) Ancestry.com. This partnership has dramatically expanded its half-dozen collections to a sort of “Ancestry.com lite,” including the complete US census, military and immigration records, and city directories. Once logged in via your library, find Search and scroll all the way to the bottom to unlock more US records as well as selected foreign databases.
Olive Tree Genealogy
Since its launch in 1996, this modest website has grown into a useful collection of how-to help and databases. It’s strongest on passenger records, heritage groups such as Palatines and American Indians, and less-familiar records, such as those for residents of orphans and almshouses.
RootsWeb
This venerable free site still serves up how-to articles, databases of surnames and US locations, mailing lists, pedigree files and much more—making it an oldie but a goodie.
USGenWeb
This website has been up and running for 20 years and recently got updated to provide users with a smoother mobile experience. Its state and county pages and special projects remain as vibrant as ever. Just found an ancestor who lived in, say, Stone County, Ark.? There’s a page for that, as for almost every other place your family may have landed.
Free Newspaper Archives
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Read all about your California kin in this fast-growing collection that (at last count) contains more than 873,000 issues comprising more than 10.9 million pages and 48 million articles. The University of California, Riverside, project can be searched or browsed by tag, county, date or title.
Chronicling America
Boasting almost 20 million pages from coast to coast, this Library of Congress project digitizes US newspapers from 1777 to 1963 and offers a directory to help you find newspapers in libraries.
GenDisasters.com
This specialized site will have you perversely wishing all your ancestors had died in train wrecks, fires, floods, shipwrecks, plane crashes or other disasters. Search by keyword or browse by type of disaster, state or province, or year to find transcribed newspaper accounts of the events.
Online Historical Newspapers
Though still a work in progress, this website is worth bookmarking for help in answering these key questions: Are newspapers from my ancestors’ town online? And if so, where?
Free UK Genealogy Websites
FreeUKGenealogy
Volunteers for this site’s three online transcription projects have made available 288 million birth, marriage and death records (1837–1992); 55 million records from parish registers (1500s and later); and entries on 44.5 million individuals from census data (1841–1891). Before you pay to find your UK kin, check here.
GENUKI
Get your British Isles genealogy questions answered in this virtual reference library of genealogical information about the UK and Ireland (GENeaology + UK + Ireland = GENUKI). Maps, how-to’s, a church database, FAQs and more will jump-start your research.
Free Canadian Genealogy Websites
Library and Archives Canada
Do your one-stop “shopping” here for free Canadian censuses, immigration lists, vital records, land and military files at this umbrella site.
Free Irish Genealogy Websites
National Archives of Ireland
Explore your Irish ancestry in this collection that includes 1901 and 1911 census records, census survivals (1821–1851), census search forms (1841–1851), Tithe Applotment Books (1823–1837), Soldiers’ Wills (1914–1918) and the Calendars of Wills and Administrations (1858–1922).
National Library of Ireland
The pot of gold here is the free collection of images of birth, marriage and burial registers from the majority of Catholic parishes in Ireland and Northern Ireland, dating from the 1700s to about 1880. You can browse them by parish; click on the map at registers.nli.ie to get started.
Free Danish Genealogy Websites
Danish Demographic Database
Find the Danes in your family tree with this English-accessible collection of all Danish censuses plus some probate and emigration records.
Free Norwegian Genealogy Websites
Digitalarkivet
The fully scanned 1875 census adds to this comprehensive collection of Norwegian enumerations, church records, emigration information, historical photographs, land and probate records and more. Click the link for digitized archives to get started.
Free Central and Eastern European Genealogy Websites
Federation of Eastern European Family History Societies
The map library is the star of the organization’s site, but you’ll also find databases and how-to guides.
GenealogyIndexer.org
Search nearly 2 million pages relevant to Central and East European family history here, including historical directories, Holocaust memorials, military lists and school sources.
Free French Genealogy Websites
GeneaNet
Find your French families with this site’s guides to archives, a genealogy encyclopedia, uploaded trees and beaucoup links.
Free German Genealogy Websites
German Genealogy Server
Yes, this site from Germany’s Association for Computer Genealogy is in Deutsch, but Google Translate can open the door to its mailing lists, forum, society pages, digitized books, gazetteer, WWI casualty database and research aids.
Free Jewish Genealogy Websites
Israel Genealogy Research Association
The 2.5 million-plus records in this collection range in date from the Ottoman era to the early 1950s, and cover Jewish communities both in Israel and elsewhere, including North Africa and Middle Eastern countries.
JewishGen
The dozens of databases here include the 500,000 surname and town entries in the JewishGen Family Finder, 7 million names in the Family Tree of the Jewish People, a database of 6,000 Jewish communities, a 54-nation gazetteer and 3.6 million entries on victims of the Holocaust.
Free Dutch Genealogy Websites
Wie Was Wie
This home to 220 million entries about Dutch ancestors puts civil-registration records at your fingertips, along with population and church registers and family trees and biographies.
Free Genealogy Technology Tools
Cyndi’s List
Launched in 1996, Cyndi’s List remains the go-to resource for carefully categorized links to genealogy websites—more than 316,000 in 229 categories, last we looked.
Evernote
This digital scrapbook lets you save web pages and genealogy finds on one device—tablet, PC, Mac, even your phone—and then access them on all your gadgets.
GEDMatch
Match your autosomal DNA (atDNA) results with genetic kin who’ve uploaded their data from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage DNA or FamilyTreeDNA’s Family Finder.
Seriously, if you’re not already using the search, mapping, translation and other tools here, you probably shouldn’t be reading this article.
International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki
Learn all about genetic-genealogy technology from the experts at this informative wiki, founded in 2005 by DNA project administrators.
Internet Archive
The long list of collections here ranges from millions of library items to specialized collections for California and Portugal. Plus, the Wayback Machine can find vanished genealogy sites from the early internet. (Remember Geocities?)
One-Step Web Pages
Clever Steve Morse has figured out how to dive deep into genealogy databases—notably censuses and passenger records—with flexible search forms. (Matches in subscription websites require payment to view.)
WordPress
Build your own family history website with the most popular platform, complete with thousands of free themes, or host a blog-style site at the companion WordPress.com.
Free Websites for Sharing Your Genealogy
Not just for posting political rants and pictures of your kids, the world’s biggest social networking site is also a useful tool for finding cousins and sharing research finds. All your favorite genealogy organizations (including Family Tree Magazine) have pages as well.
Geni
Start your own online tree here by looking for matches among 245 million individual profiles generated by 15 million users. You can also invite family members to collaborate.
Sort of like Facebook for images, this online scrapbook/digital tagboard has proven a valuable tool for family historians, who share everything from records to old photos.
Treelines
Winner of the Developer Challenge at FamilySearch’s 2013 RootsTech conference, Treelines takes a narrative approach to online family trees, helping you turn your pedigree charts into ancestral stories.
WeRelate
This wiki-style project from the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy has pages for over 3 million ancestors of its members.
WikiTree
This shared family tree includes more than 33 million profiles contributed by more than 972,000 genealogists from around the world. Don’t let the sharing scare you, though: Modern family histories are private; as you go back in time, the privacy controls open up.
Free Resources from Libraries and Archives
Allen County Public Library
Though based in Indiana, this library’s online reach extends much further—reflecting its status as the nation’s second-richest genealogy library. Special collections focus on Native American, African American, military and family Bible records.
Ancestry Library Edition
Your local library may offer you access to Ancestry.com’s immigration, census, vital and other records through Ancestry Library Edition. The library has to pay, of course, but it’s free to you as a patron.
ArchiveGrid
An offshoot of 101 Best Websites fave WorldCat, ArchiveGrid searches more than 7 million descriptions of archival records from 1,400 different institutions. Learn about historical documents, personal papers, family histories and other materials that may mention your ancestors. A clickable map makes it easy to find archives near you.
Digital Library on American Slavery
This University of North Carolina at Greensboro project compiles sources including extracts from court and legislative petitions, slave “deeds,” insurance registries and “wanted” ads for escaped slaves. The focus is North Carolina, but data relate to all slave states.
Digital Public Library of America
One click searches more than 47 million digitized items from libraries, archives and museums, or you can navigate via interactive timelines and maps. Your searches also include FamilySearch’s growing free digital historical book collection.
Genealogy Gophers
Smart, intuitive searching is the hallmark of the partnership with FamilySearch here, which quickly combs 80,000 digitized books.
HathiTrust
Log in with credentials from a participating institution such as a university to get the most out of this digital library’s almost 17 million total volumes and 6 billion pages. But there’s plenty here accessible to the general public, too.
Library of Congress
Though not specifically focused on genealogy, the nation’s library has plenty to offer online, including the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections and its own comprehensive catalog.
National Archives and Records Administration
Read all about the genealogical treasures stored at the National Archives, order military and other records, and browse historical maps and photos. Access to Archival Databases serves up files ranging from WWII enlistments to passenger lists for millions of German, Irish, Russian and Italian immigrants.
Midwest Genealogy Center
This site from the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence, Mo., taps one of the nation’s largest genealogy collections. Online extras include an index to US Railroad Retirement Board pension records.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
The cool factor is off the charts at this handsome home to more than 900,000 digitized prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, videos and other items. The site’s maps and atlases alone are worth a visit.
WorldCat
Find your family history in 3 billion items at 10,000 of the world’s libraries, then click to see holdings nearest you.
Related Reads
Last updated January 2023.
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