Discover your Family for free

Chris Paton highlights some of the best online resources to find your relatives without counting the cost

The online resources that will reveal your ancestors without costing a penny

Researching your family history can be an expensive business, requiring investment in subscriptions for websites such as Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk), Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk) and TheGenealogist ( thegenealogist.co.uk). Many powerful resources are available for free, however, which can save you a small fortune. Some have fully indexed and digitised collections, such as FamilySearch ( familysearch.org), where you can see an image of the actual document, while other resources act more as useful finding aids for records, but still need to be corroborated.

A good starting point is to check local libraries for licensed digital collections available free online to members (such as newspaper databases) as well as local history collections. Many archives and their associated ‘ friends’ groups (such as that for Dundee at fdca.org.uk) provide free indexes, while local family history societies in an area of interest might also have some useful offerings on their websites. Platforms such as GENUKI ( genuki.org.uk) can help to locate more regionalised holdings, as can gateway sites such as Cyndi’s List ( cyndislist.com). Additional resources may also be found on more specialist platforms, such as JewishGen ( jewishgen.org), which has free offerings from across Britain and Ireland for Jewish-based research, although you will have to register before you can access them.

From parish registers to maps, gazetteers and directories, here are the websites you need to visit to build your family tree without counting the cost.