Find a ton of family genealogy online using 100% free international and worldwide search resources, locators, and databases. Find anyone, anywhere, with accurate details. This is the best true way to start your family history searches.
Free Family Tree Search History
Searching for family members, alive or someone from the past? How do you locate them?
Personal information about your family tree can often be found using completely free search-finder services like top search engines. If family records reside on a website and aren’t blocked from search-engine indexing, fast-track results by entering full names, addresses, or even phone numbers into platforms like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Check these engines for real-time info and reverse lookup options to unmask identity details.
Try this: Use a search engine to look up your own name. If results are too broad, add a middle initial, past address, or school. Still no luck? Searching for someone you know (e.g., “John Smith Helsinki”) can help verify accurate background information and refine your global searches.
Records for Genealogists and Family Historians
The internet hosts worldwide family-history databases, with archivists digitizing public records faster than ever. Locate a single thread in your family tree, and you might uncover totally free works shared by genealogists via email or websites. For example, searching “Ulysses S. Grant” in quotes could reveal contact information or personal details.
Top services like FamilySearch.org or government sites (e.g., .gov or .org) offer online directories of records - though check if they’re completely free. While some sites sell data, others (like New Zealand's govt.nz provide local and international databases absolutely free.
Search Family Court Records and Cases
Family court records - divorces, custody decisions, civil cases - are stored locally, statewide, or federally. If public and digitized, these records are searchable online via databases (though DNA info remains private). Use locator tools or lookup services to find true case details from anywhere.
Free Family Crest Search
Search for a family crest by surname by using the search services at a popular search sites. Enter the family name followed by 'family crest' and peruse the results. If there are too many results, try appending a name of a country to the search phrase, or 'coat of arms'.
In Google for example, sites appearing first in the search results should be flagged with 'Ad'. Any data offered is often limited and does not return useful results.
A unique way of finding an existing family crest is to use an image search. Some search engines now make it possible to upload a picture of a coat of arms or 'point' to an online heraldic symbol and view several possible matches. Why do this if an image of the crest is already in hand? This method is also used to determine if a family's crest is in use, either from previous findable works or without permission as a copyright violation.
Spaniards were big on family crests. Tracing back through Spanish history will discover several crests of families from Spain.
Locate Family Ancestry Tree Members
How to find members of family-tree ancestry and research ancestors' genealogical history is much easier today online than it was pre Internet, especially with the advent of searching by DNA.
Participants can provide a saliva sample to Ancestry DNA which is analyzed for seven hundred DNA 'markers' and added to a database which allegedly currently has sixteen million enrollees.
The objective is to trace male and female family members using autosomal (any gender) results. It appears that searches are available for $99 and involves Amazon.
Free resource for tracing relatives and locating public records are growing as well so DNA search may not be the first option with only .2% of the world's population participating.
The best free searches for family history are the large search engines and websites that are devoted to recording genealogy and making that data available for public search without paying.
Be aware that when searching for 'free family History search' online, the results that appear at the very top of search results have been placed there as advertisements by site owners who are attempting to sell information. This placements should be flagged with an icon denoting 'paid advertisement'.
By now most surfers are well aware that people who own sites that sell family genealogy manipulate representations of the offerings in search results by targeting the word 'free' and might even provide some limited data 'for free'. The webpage where the 'free information' displayed is often dotted if not crowded with click bait to advertisements and/or links to paid services.
Certificates of death are to be field with local health departments within seventy-two hours. Of course they won't always be available and of those that have been field, many won't be accessible searching online but for those that are, lookup the record of a deceased ancestor by searching the vital-statistics office at the state or county level.
Most records in developed countries will be in electronic form and for those that are, one or more of the major search engines will likely have found and recorded them, making them available for search, which is an easier way to search all areas as opposed to having to know in which municipality the certificate may have been field.
In poorer and uncivilized countries there may be no death records - only burial plots with unmarked graves.
Family Search Historical Records
There's a ton of historical research recorded by the larger search engines. Search for family ancestry in genealogy records by accessing the engines' libraries of available resources which can includes collections of webpages, documents and images of past family members.
If the family member served in the armed forces there a few databases specializing in records of ex-military personnel (veterans):
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall includes fifty-seven thousand nine hundred thirty-nine soldiers who were either killed in action, prisoners of ware or reported missing. The website vvmf.com.commf.org has a simple search function for searching for a vet by name. Searching 'William Wallace' for example provides several possible matches with a link to the serviceman's webpage and a brief tribute like "Warrant Officer William Thomas Wallace Jr., Served with A Troop, 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Aviation Brigade, United States Army Vietnam."
Veterans of World War II are listed on National Archives pages at archives.gov. To view names it is necessary to drill down through a directory. Many servicemen and veterans are from Puerto Rico and other Caribbean countries.
The pages are in picture form (.gif) making the name unsearchable:
There is a search function on site but searching for a name on one of the image pages isn't found.
Casualties of most countries in World War I are searchable at theworldremembers dot org by entering first and last name, country and year of death. Searching for 'Elmer Smith 1920' reveals that data is provided by the 'NWWIM&M' which appears to be a work in progress. A 'video' is offered which appears to be a (slow) slide show of names.
The National Archives and Records Administration at USA dot gov provides Genealogy Research in Military Records, a compilation of information acquired from 'muster rolls' (official lists of officers and men in a military unit or ship's company), pay vouchers, returns and other records. Data includes rank, unit, dates in and out of service, basic biographical, medical and military information.