Free resources

Family history research is an expensive business.

Here are some suggestions for finding information for free.

familysearch.org is free. A most wonderful resource for many countries. Includes 1881 census for England and Wales

scotlandspeople.gov.uk is now free to search.  To see the record you need to pay though.
You can view transcription of 1881 (LDS) census for free https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/advanced-search/#{"category":"census"}


freecen.org.uk UK wide censuses.  Patchy coverage but most areas are covered in 1841.

freebmd.org
 England and Wales birth, marriages and deaths

freereg.org.uk   UK

gro.gov.uk   You can search for births and deaths in England and Wales

sctbdm.org.uk  Scottish births marriages and deaths, user submitted records. This site seems to be no longer available. (September 2018)


If you are serious, you want  to sign up to ancestry.co.uk or findmypast.co.uk  Start with a basic account.  Ancestry offers a free trial and is often free over holiday weekends.
Some libraries offer free access to ancestry.

Some records on findmypast are free to view

Also check out
http://genealogydiscount.co.uk for offers.


1940 US census is free
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/full-list-of-united-states-records/census-land-and-substitutes/us-census-1940-free-access


1921 census of Canada is free
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8991

free census

As well as familysearch.org there are some other good free sites such as

freecen.org.uk

This has transcriptions of UK censuses. In Scotland there are mainly only 1841 and some 1851 ones available.

I use it a lot for 1841 and I like it because you can click on the previous or subsequent households to check out the neighbours and neighbouring addresses.

Search either on Census Place or Census County.

You can also try searching on street name if you don't get a result using the surname.

Familysearch

https://familysearch.org is the site of the Mormon church (church of the Latter Day Saints) and a fantastic worldwide resource and it's FREE.

Once you get your line back to 1875 you can find births and marriages on familysearch for free. You don't get to see the original documents but the way the search works is better than scotlandpeople, in my opinion.

For example:

• it will recognise similar names so you don't need to have the spelling absolutely correct
• you can do a parent search
• the results give you the parents where the search results on SP just give you the name so you have to pay even more credits to get the document which may turn out to be  the wrong person.
• you can also search by Batch Number more on this next time