Free Family Research
An offering of the institution — free, conducted under editorial discipline, open to any family of humankind that asks.
You bring the name. We bring the record.
Listen · a word on the work
You bring the name. We point the way to the record.
Most of what you seek is already written down — in free archives, in the hands of institutions, and in the memory of your living elders. This is the steward’s path through it.
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Begin with what you hold
Names, dates, places — and above all, the living. Sit with your elders and record their voices before the memory passes. Begin in The Steward’s Journal; it is the first and most perishable archive.
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Search the free record first
Before paying for anything, search the world’s great free collections. FamilySearch alone holds billions of records across ~200 countries, free; then the U.S. National Archives and the Library of Congress.
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For African & diaspora lineage
The thread does not break at 1870. The Freedmen’s Bureau & Freedman’s Bank records name the newly freed; lean too on the Schomburg Center, AfriGeneas, and 10 Million Names.
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Trace by blood
Where the paper ends, DNA can carry you toward regions, peoples, and living kin. AncestryDNA keeps a dedicated African-American journey; African Ancestry traces lineage to specific African peoples.
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Connect the branches
As the names gather, give them shape. Begin Your Living Lineage below, then continue into the deeper archives to reach the generations beyond living memory.
Vetted houses of record — we mark plainly which are free and which we keep as trusted partners.
Free archives
FamilySearch
Billions of records, ~200 countries. The free spine of all research.
FreeNational Archives
U.S. census, military, immigration, naturalization, land.
FreeLibrary of Congress
Local history & genealogy reading room and collections.
FreeUSGenWeb Archives
Volunteer-transcribed county records across the U.S.
African & diaspora heritage
Freedmen’s Bureau & Bank
Records of the newly freed after 1865 — names, marriages, households.
FreeSchomburg Center
NYPL’s great repository for research in Black culture and history.
FreeAfriGeneas
Census, slave data, a surname index, and a research community.
Free10 Million Names
Recovering the names of enslaved people of African descent in the U.S.
The deeper archives
Ancestry
30B+ records, 80+ countries, a dedicated African-American hub, DNA. Our recommended house for going deeper.
PremiumMyHeritage
20B+ global records; photo restoration and animation.
PremiumFindmypast
The specialist for UK, Irish, and Commonwealth records.
Trace by blood · institutions
African Ancestry
Traces maternal and paternal lineage to specific African peoples.
FreeNational Genealogical Society
Standards, education, and free research resources.
FreeFamily History Library
The world’s largest genealogy library and its local centers.
Your Living Lineage
Name the three generations you carry. It is saved privately on your device — no account, no cloud. When ready, continue into the deeper archives to reach beyond living memory.
Saved privately on this device.
Honored Ancestors keeps a few trusted partners among the deeper archives; following those links may support the work, at no cost to you. The free houses above ask nothing, and never will.
— How we work —
The free guidance above is yours to use today. A deeper, done-for-you research service is in active build, under the same guiding principles that govern the rest of the archive.
- AI may draft, AI does not publish. Research is AI-assisted; the editorial team reviews any record before it enters the permanent archive. Guiding Principle 6.
- No surveillance. Your inputs are not sold, not used to train any AI system, and not shared with third-party data brokers. Guiding Principle 5.
- Open about what is unfindable. Where a fact cannot be corroborated, the draft will say so. The discipline of the Archive is to state what we know, not what we believe.
- Free remains free. Free Family Research is the public-good layer of the institution. There is no paywall on the research draft itself.