52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy- Free tools

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy- Free tools

Free tools, my favorite, always my favorite: USGenWeb-Search.Us Home Page.

My next favorite which is a part of Ancestry.com now   RootsWeb.com Home Page  is queries and lists etc.
Brian and Karen I still thank you for doing this so long ago.

Why you ask? I tend to like free things, I think volunteers do a more thorough job than paid employees, they put more heart into it. Just more careful with transcriptions and information. Prime example is when Ancestry shopped out the census's. Mom's home county is still in the wrong state.

USGENWEB.ORG has the list of each state and then it breaks the states into counties and the basic data for most all counties is there.  Alas some are not as well kept in the last few years but some are better than any I have ever seen.

Do not forget to go into their archives for older data not showing up front. Some of those sites are better than current sites.

You can get the basic information of the court house, documents, whom to contact, who will help with research, who has asked for help on surnames or places, many share data from their books if your willing to wait until they can answer your questions. These people are absolutely super people.

The lists and other data that is on Rootsweb.com can let you reach people's organizations to request information or to guide you were to get help. I have found hundreds of distant cousins using these lists. Yes, they may be collateral or distant but if you leave no stone unturned you ask them all as you find them someone is holding that jigsaw puzzle piece.

Think I am wrong, no, I listened to Dr. T Jones yesterday and he said it as eloquently as I have heard.
The days of only doing the direct line is long past.  One has no idea who holds the missing piece of the puzzle.

Families of 15 shared those remnants of the parents lives and 100 years later and 3 generations farther down. You have to ask the distant kin whom used to have sibling relationships to the past generations.

One line alone of mine in 1850 had 14 children, 3 did not live to have children, but one did reach adult hood of these three.  11 had children  I counted that there was near 150 grandchildren.  Gee, we only have 10.