Like many people, I began my family history research at my regional National Archives office. And, while there is probably a center near you, you don’t have to travel at all to access many of their records. The National Archives and Records Administration offers a rich trove of online documents and they’re completely free.
Genealogy is our personal history, a deep dive into the events, decisions, and twists of fate that brought a family to its current place in time. But studying history in a broader sense provides fascinating context to our research. Political and economic change, war, and technology advances influenced our ancestors to leave their homes, start families, change careers, and even change their names.
Genealogy is an endless treasure hunt and, if you’re not careful, you can spend a lot of your own treasure building your family tree. Subscriptions to the popular paid genealogy sites like Ancestry and MyHeritage can cost hundreds of dollars a year. That’s why, when you discover your fourth-great-grandmother for free, it truly feels like you’ve stuck gold! And it’s why we are all about mining the vast genealogy resources on the internet for free records.
If your ancestors lived in the United States before 1890, you are sure to run into a frustrating gap in United States census records. Sadly, there is practically no 1890 U.S. Census left. But, luckily, there are substitute records that can help you overcome this hurdle.