You start with yourself and what you do know and you work back one generation at a time, documenting each relationship and generation one to the other. If you are truly interested I have included a plan for a beginner at family history including links that will be easy on your budget.
First, start by asking all your living relatives about family history and get any documents or pictures they are willing to share with you for your files. You can photocopy or scan these and return them to their owner. Your public libraries will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you can use Heritage Quest at home.
Another free online resource is U.S. GenWeb at: http://www.usgenweb.org/ they have a page for every state and everything is free. Then there is Rootsweb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/, a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames and leave queries on the message boards. Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention FamilySearch.org they have many free online records and are digitizing more every day, all free. Their website is: http://www.familysearch.org/. Be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example, the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at: http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills at http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinear…
Also, do not forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com, which has many links for both free and paid sites.
I’m sure I could come up with many more websites but these should keep you busy for a while and there should be lots of family history to be found for free with all these websites.
First, start by asking all your living relatives about family history and get any documents or pictures they are willing to share with you for your files. You can photocopy or scan these and return them to their owner. Your public libraries will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you can use Heritage Quest at home.
Another free online resource is U.S. GenWeb at: http://www.usgenweb.org/ they have a page for every state and everything is free. Then there is Rootsweb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/, a free site hosted by Ancestry.com where you can search for surnames and leave queries on the message boards. Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention FamilySearch.org they have many free online records and are digitizing more every day, all free. Their website is: http://www.familysearch.org/. Be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example, the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at: http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and South Carolina has many free wills at http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinear…
Also, do not forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com, which has many links for both free and paid sites.
I’m sure I could come up with many more websites but these should keep you busy for a while and there should be lots of family history to be found for free with all these websites.