We have created a new tool on Family History Daily, the Family History Search Engine. It’s a simple custom search box that allows you to look for your ancestors on a wide variety of different genealogy websites.
We have added mostly free genealogy resources to our search–including large research websites and smaller regional archives and government records. To make the tool as useful as possible, and provide as many relevant results as we can, we have also included some subscription services. When looking through the results, be aware that some places may ask you to sign up to take advantage of their site, and some may charge a subscription fee. Of course, signing up for any fee based site is always optional. We are adding valuable resources weekly, so feel free to suggest a genealogy site you would like to see included.
We hope this simple little tool will prove to be helpful to you in your research. You can find the free genealogy search box here or from the navigation bar on any page.
So, am I missing something? Where is the free genealogy search engine? I’m trying to find the 1890 Census.
I did my family trees on Ancestry back in 1998. I didn’t use the site for a couple of years and when I tried to, I couldn’t get back onto use it. Contacted Ancestry and got nowhere. The got all my info for free and charge everyone to use their site. If I could get back to my family info, I would delete all of it.
Wanda, I am so sorry that you had a bad experience. Our search tool is 100% free to use. We do not ask for any personal information to use it, especially payment information.
If you will check the search page you will see a search box directly under the title “Conduct Your Free Genealogy Search.” When entering a search term in this box you will find that it searches hundreds of genealogy sites and returns a variety of results. The vast majority of the results will point to free sites that offer records and resources. Many are government and regional archives. The search may return a few results to paid records, but we have made very effort to filter those out.
We did include RootsWeb and Ancestry’s forums because they provide valuable free information, however those pages (being owned by Ancestry) may point to pay for records. You certainly do not have to take advantage of those.
We also have a couple of ads on the site.We need to have advertising to pay our expenses, and they are clearly labeled as ads. Perhaps you confused an ad for the search box?
I hope this helps clarify things. If you cannot see the search box then we may have a technical issue to address on our end, so please let me know. You can response here or email me at [email protected]. I am more than happy to help! 🙂
I just tried to use this and the very first thing I did wouldn’t allow me to view records without paying a fee to be a member first. I detest false advertising. 🙁
Thanks for developing/offering the Free Genealogy Search Engine! I look forward to testing it out and maybe even find that elusive piece of data that will knock down a brick wall!