How can i find information about my deceased relatives?
Of course, there are a few good websites you can go to to check. The only thing is that you need to have some information in order to search, like the last names of your parents and grandparents. That will help to make the research better and more helpful to you. Also if you have any birth dates or death dates. One good website to check is www.ancestorhunt.com. The Mormons are awesome at keeping genealogy records and helping to find what you are looking for. Also check www.familysearch.org. It’s really good. That’s the website I use for my genealogy. I hope this helps!
This may not help at all for other people, but the best two free ways I have found of gleaning information about relatives, and particularly those who died post 1900, (other than talking to family, of course) are from gravestones and from bmd announcements in local newspapers. These often contain dates of birth, marriage and death, cause of death, names of relatives etc. If you live in the same area as your relatives, you should be able to find back copies of local newspapers at a library and physically go to churchyards, cemeteries etc to look for family graves. If not, some newspapers have searchable online archives and some genealogists transcribe and post monumental inscriptions in their local cemeteries to the net (http://www.interment.net/ and http://www.findagrave.com/are some US monumental inscription sites I’ve heard of. For UK MIs,
You might see if your local library has a subscription to Ancestry or Heritage Quest where you can search for free. You can check census records, old town directories, and old newspapers for relatives and their children to 1930 . Your library may also have something about your relatives in a reference book if they are from that area. You can also add their names to free message boards, mailing lists and such in hope of getting more information from another researcher. Try http://genforum.genealogy.com/ and http://lists.rootsweb.com/ for their state/county. Another great place to find information for free is at a Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Family History Center if there is one close. You don’t have to be a member of the church to use it.
The two words “genealogy” and “free” should not be used together in the same sentence. Death Certificates (and any other document relating to a life event – births and marriages for example – and especially anything remotely recent from the 20thC after WW2) are not available online at all due to Data Protection restrictions. Finding out information online about recently living people is next-to-impossible. Ancestry is all well and good, but you’ll only get the indexes to the various national BMD indexes – if you actually want to see the certificate and what it actually says, then you have to order it from the appropriate agency and pay for it. One thing it isn’t is free. If you do it right, it will cost an arm and a leg and take a lot of time. Most people who ask questions like this on Y/A (and there is at least one every day) just can’t be bothered with the work. If you think you can do this hobby on the cheap then you are sadly mistaken, and anyone who says you can is lying. The only
