Resources

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of free genealogy-related websites for family history research. These are some free offsite resources for researching ancestors across the United States, covering multiple states and counties.

Libraries, Archives, and Organizations

• National Archives
• Library of Congress has many free digital collections, including the historic newspaper collection Chronicling America and the Maps collection
• Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
• Internet Archive
• National Park Service where you can "Explore America's Story" to find photos, documents, and databases such as the Civil War Soldiers & Sailors Database
• Newberry Library
• BYU Family History Library
• Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library of American genealogical and historical manuscripts and publications
• Open Library read books online
• HathiTrust manages an ever growing number of library digital collections, including Cornell University's Making of America collection
• Project Gutenburg read books online
• Google Newspaper Archive to search articles from hundreds of newspapers
• Bureau of Land Management land patents database to search
• USGS Domestic Names
• Coffelt Database of Vietnam War Casualties
• American Revolutionary War
• Family Search a robust genealogical service
• Find A Grave burial records, which oftentimes have photos, biographies, records, obituaries, family connections, ...
• Linkpedium a genealogy resource directory

Focused on Ethnicity

• African-American
• Germans from Russia
• Irish American Immigration History
• Japanese
• Jewish
• Native American
• Swedish

YouTube Channels

• Family History Fanatics
• Genealogy with Amy Johnson Crow
• Genealogy TV with Constance Knox
• Lisa Lisson Find Your Ancestors, Grow Your Family Tree, Preserve Your Family Stories
• Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems

More Worthy Links

• USGenWeb Archives - The USGenWeb Project's online data storage
• WorldGenWeb explore the genealogy of the United States and other countries
• Do History "shows you how to piece together the past from the fragments that have survived"
• Ancestral Quest software for your family history project, a Basics version is available free
• Legacy software for your family history project, their Standard Edition is available to download free
• Cyndi's List - an extensive, categorized, and cross-referenced list of genealogical research websites
• Conference Keeper maintained by the National Genealogical Society
• Calendar of Genealogy Events maintained by Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Links to websites that are not part of The USGenWeb Project are provided for your convenience and do not imply any endorsement of the web sites or their contents by The USGenWeb Project.

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Page content reviewed and/or updated by the Advisory Board 2025 Oct