Is there one decent (preferably free) site?

OU812

Was looking at several sites & the majority appear to be ppv. Unfortunately funds don't allow right now & I'm stuck in limbo.

L1011

There's a sizeable amount of free info between familysearch, the census site and irishgeneology as well as freebmd for England/Wales. Pay sites are valuable for US or Scottish records and the integration they offer but there are still a huge amount of free records.

Hermy

Something I posted before:

Hermy wrote: »

...the Tracing Guide on the front page is definitely the place to start.
And follow that with the Irish Genealogy Toolkit on Clare Santry's blog.

Free websites I use most regularly include:

1901/ 1911 Census Returns

Irish Church Records

Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1858 - 1922

I have a paid subscription for Ancestry.co.uk which costs £19.99 a month and it has been well worth it for my research. They have a 14 day free trial which might be worth a go to begin with.

Perhaps if you can say who, where and when you're interested in researching others may be able to give details of more specific sources.:)

dido2

It depends really on what country your looking for records in, Ireland has quite a bit free online, if it's English Records a 14 day trial of Find My Past might give you an idea, Ancestry also do a trial period too...

My biggest reason for Ancestry over Find My Past is that if you only want access for a month or so, you can do, and it's not PPV, you pay for the month and have full access to everything, I like to browse, I've found a lot by just browsing...

Ponster

OU812 wrote: »

Unfortunately funds don't allow right now & I'm stuck in limbo.

You can use the 1911 and 1901 census returns to find your family but if you want to go a step back from there you'll need marriage certs and birth certs, each of which cost 4e to order. Free websites (familysearch.orf) and even ppv sites such as Ancestry can only give you the index that you use to order the certs. As MYOB said, depending on the county you're looking at you can find more records online than others (Dublin and Kerry for example)

L1011

If you have a credit/visa debit card; I'd echo the suggestion of signing up for the free trial on both Ancestry and FMP and absolutely pillaging the sites during it. Just remember the cancel (and FMP take payment on the 13th day rather than the 14th and take a while to refund you if you cancel on the last day). Remember to get a trial of World on Ancestry (if they allow that still) as if you take UK/Ireland you can end up with it giving you suggested record that you can't view... very frustrating!

Other lower cost options include the Irish Newspaper Archives - if you had a slightly better off family in areas covered this can save a lot of money on certs - I managed to get a huge number of specific marriage and death dates going back to the 19th century for one arm of my family, far more than a week subscription cost.

The IFHF (RootsIreland) site can be invaluable but its PPV and very dear. Make sure to do as much research as you can on parishes, year coverage and registration districts before committing any money down here.

mflood

If you're ever in the Dún Laoghaire the Genealogical Society of Ireland on Carlisle Pier have Find My Past, Ancestry and Irish Newspaper Archives free on their computers. You will be asked to make a voluntary contribution as it is run by volunteers and they have to pay rent, electricity etc. but it would be a cheaper option