Genealogy Starting Points on the Internet

[Panache]

Hi all,

My real Scottish connection is through my great grandfather and my parents haven't been very useful in providing a lot of information about him. After a couple of years of "oh I'm sure we have some records somewhere" I have decided that I will need to bypass them.

Sadly there is no family left alive on that side of my family tree save my Mother.

I started today looking online with the (probably) stupid idea that government records (birth, death, census info, military registration) would be easy to search. It seems that pretty much everywhere I look eventually links to Ancestry.com.

For those of you out there who are experienced in these kinds of searches, should I bite the bullet and sign up or are there better ways of looking into these records?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Cheers

Jamie

[Sionnach]

Can't advise you, just know that I, too, have hit the same wall. My father's side is the place to go for me, but I have lost that connection for various and sundry reasons I won't go into. I'll wait to see what good info comes up on this thread. Thanks for taking the lead.

[Sheep In Wolf's Clothing]

You can always try the Church of LDS research site. It's free and lists many records from all kinds of government sources.
It can be found here:
http://www.familysearch.org/

Good luck with your search!
Sara

[Drillagent]

SIGN UP FOR ANCESTRY.COM!!!!

Not only do they have important documents (I found a Civil War veteran ancestor, and the WWI draft card of another) they have millions of people on thousands of ancestry trees donated by others searching for their ancestors. You could very well find a cousin who is searching for the very same thing. Well worth the money!

[Southern Breeze]

Ancestry.com is what I use. Well worth the expense.

[gilmore]

Ancestry.com is what I use. Well worth the expense.

While ancestry.com is limited in some ways, it is the best online. Typos abound.

I would be very careful of the LDS site for anything but government records. They accept anything that is given to them by private researchers with no quality control that I know of. You may find seemingly relevant info there, but it needs to be verified elsewhere from more nearly primary sources.

[macwilkin]

Visit your local library's genealogy department. Most library genealogy departments have free classes on a wide variety of genealogical research topics, and good networks to obtain sources via interlibrary loan. Most libraries will also subscribe to Ancestry.com, so that means their patrons can access the site for free.

Regards,

Todd

[george7]

If you sign up just once, get the records you were looking for and post a trail for those to find you... you may get priceless information.

[gilmore]

Visit your local library's genealogy department. Most library genealogy departments have free classes on a wide variety of genealogical research topics, and good networks to obtain sources via interlibrary loan...

It has been my experience that very, very few libraries will share their genealogical books---other than the more general works about history--- via the interlibrary loan program. Most are printing in small runs, and I was told that they are stolen too often, or rather, not returned by the borrower.

[Daniel Hyde]

Hi Jamie,
There are many free internet sites. Rootsweb.com, is where others upload their info for mutual help. Familysearch.org, is the Mormons site. It can be very usefull. Another is the USGenweb. All fifty states are represented here, some with better on line data and services than others. Your nearest LARGE public library may be of great help as well. As far as Scots go, an author, David Dobson, has written dozens of books on the Scots migration to America. Some of my MacGillivray's are in there, and they were a small family.
There are many resources out there, I have just scratched the surface with these. Take heart, it's not impossible.
Regards,
Dan