Everytime a website says its free public records, it lets you search but then it wants you to pay for the results. Anyone know of a website that is truly free?I am looking for free public records, not free to search and then pay for results?
Here is one free site:
http://www.pcdl.lib.oh.us/marriage/searc鈥?/a>
Don't let "marriage" in the URL fool you. They have Family Bibles, Birth certificates, Cemetery records, Census entries., Church records (members, birth, baptism, christening, death, burial), Court cases (civil or criminal), Death records, Directory entries (city, county, telephone), Estate settlement records, Estate receipts, Guardianship orders, Maps (including plat maps), Marriage records, Military records (including DAR file), Minute books %26amp; ledgers, Newspaper articles, Obituaries, School records, and Wills, and they are all free. Most of them are images of the original records, too, so there is no possibility of transcription errors. Your ancestors can still be mistaken, though.
There is one little catch - it is only for Preble County, Ohio, and, except for the obits, most of the records are pre-1900. If your ancestors were in Preble County, Ohio, you will be so happy you'll be dancing across the room screaming "Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!" so loud that the neighbors will think I came for dinner and brought the wine.
If not, this site will be totally worthless, and you'll be crying bitter tears into your pillow tonight, asking the Lord why your ancestors didn't settle in Preble County.
If you give us a time frame and a county, we may be able to help.
My point is that there ARE free genealogy sites out there; they vary by town, county, state, (shire, in the UK) and country. Also by the years you are interested in.
Ancestry.com makes their money by paying people to transcribe tons of data. They then sell access to it. They have no free rivals. If the omelet fairy delivered free breakfasts to everyone every morning, would Denny's stay in business? If there was a web site just like Ancestry, but free, would Ancestry stay in business?
Rootsweb, Us Gen Web, GenForum and the free parts of Ancestry are the biggest and widest (i.e., cover the most states) free sites on the web, but there are 400,000+ free sites. Preble County is a rare gem and the standard by which I judge all other county libraries. Most of them wish they had the funds and/or volunteers to do likewise.
Poke around. Use Google for "[Birth | Marriage | Death] records {county} {state}" or "Genealogy {county} {State}. Post a specific question here (Does anyone know of a good site for births in Deaf Smith County, Texas before 1924?).
This may help:
http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html
I wrote it for Y!A genealogy users. It has links to 11 huge free sites, and tips on how to use them.
Explore. Have fun!I am looking for free public records, not free to search and then pay for results?
Public records covers a LOT of territory.. if you mean one site with all public records, of all kinds.. not likely. The reason.. it costs THEM to accumulate them and store them online. That is their reason for being in business.
You also have to be explicit to the type of record. Births and deaths are not public records. They ARE govt records, but restricted for security/ risk of id theft. Historical ones can be found, in some cases.
Property records are "public".. meaning that they are open. Open does not equal online. A county *might* have some files (tax records), or it might not have the funds to post it. Same applies to marriage records- they are open.. if you know the county and are willing to drive to the court house, and pull the book off the shelf. When the clerk does the looking.. that means man hours being used. In today's economy.. the probable thing is that they don't have enough clerks to keep up with standard business as it is.
And..you are right.. that 99% of the time.. when they "say" free, it is to get you to the website, and entice you with something.
Suggestion.. delete this question, get your 5 pts back.. then RE POST with more details as to what it is that you are looking for, and some idea of where. We would have a much better idea of what might be open to search.
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