Article
The best way to start your roots research is through one of
the many Web sites devoted to genealogy. A popular free site is Cyndi's
List (www.cyndislist.com), which has organized links to a wide variety
of sites. At EllisIsland.org, also free of charge, you can search
immigration records, then see a copy of your relatives' ship manifest
and a picture of the boat they traveled on. Subscription sites
lure you in with free, bare-bones, Web-based family-tree software
as well as limited amounts of free searchable data. To access more
data, including the family trees already created by others, you
have to subscribe. The MyFamily.com group of sites includes FamilyHistory.com,
which hosts genealogy message boards; RootsWeb.com, an online genealogy
community; and Ancestry.com ($79.95 to $189.95 a year), which provides
an extraordinary amount of searchable data.
Genealogy.com ($49.99 to $149.99 a year) provides similar data and
includes a free copy of Family Tree Maker software at any subscription
level. MyTrees.com ($100 a year) lets you barter your family information
for free research time: The more information you upload, the more
free time you earn to search the database of other people's genealogy
information. MyTrees.com also lets you download a free copy of the
standard edition of Legacy Family Tree.
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