Sign up for a free FamilySearch account, and do free genealogy searches whenever you want to! These days, there are lots of online tools to help you jump right in. Whether you’re an expert genealogist looking for records from another country or a beginner to family history with lots of questions, a free FamilySearch account is going to be a top resource.
Benefits of a free FamilySearch account include access to a vast amount of historical records, discoveries using the FamilySearch shared tree, an easy way to network with fellow family historians, a chance to meet new relatives, and even fun, interactive ways to learn about your family history!
Read more about these benefits and why FamilySearch offers them for free to everyone:
Benefit #1: Sweeping Access to Historical Records
With a free FamilySearch account, you have immediate access to thousands of record archives and billions of historical records—from birth and marriage certificates to draft cards, censuses, christening records, and more. FamilySearch is dedicated to obtaining access to historical records wherever they are available and in whatever form, such as jiapu and oral genealogies, from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and even a few from South America and Europe. Long story short: you might not find access like this anywhere else.
Benefit #2: Unlimited Discovery in FamilySearch Family Tree
Using FamilySearch, you can add your family story to the world’s largest shared family tree and take advantage of any stories, photos, or historical records that might already be attached there.
As mentioned above, the main benefit of a shared family tree is that you can explore what other people add (for deceased ancestors, that is) and they can search what you add. In fact, when you enter an ancestor’s name into FamilySearch, we look for matches in the shared family tree and let you know if we find one.
In the image below, you can see a user's family tree in fan chart view. The arrows indicate names that the user entered. All the other names were automatically added because the entered names connected with someone else's family lines.
The shared Family Tree isn’t just a place for saving names and dates. It also offers storage space for photos, stories, audio recordings, and historical documents. Basically, anything that can be saved and uploaded as a PDF or picture file can be preserved for generations to come All this is free, of course!
Benefit #3: Opportunities to Collaborate with Fellow Family Historians
Your free FamilySearch account can help you collaborate with other users on topics that interest you or questions you need help answering. You see, almost all of the information in the shared Family Tree is user-generated. You can see the contact name of the person who submitted it, and you can send that person a message. This is a great way to break through research walls you periodically run into or just to meet people who share your ancestry.
The image to the right is part of a photograph a user uploaded about a mythic great-grandfather. In the details pane, the contact name is listed as the contributor. If others have a question about the photo or simply wanted to connect, they could click that contact name and choose from the messaging options.
Benefit #4: Chance to Meet New Relatives!
Your free FamilySearch account can also introduce you to new relatives you never knew existed through activities like Relatives Around Me, which lets you see if you are related to someone near you. During RootsTech, the largest genealogy conference in the world, you can also participate in Relatives at RootsTech to see which attendees you are related to.
Both activities analyze the data in the FamilySearch Family Tree and identify cousins for you—people who use FamilySearch and who are descended from the same ancestors!
Of course, these activities can’t find relatives for you unless you’ve added at least a little bit of ancestor information to your family tree. And, the more you add, the better the activities work. At an event like RootsTech, where tens of thousands of people are gathered in person and hundreds of thousands more are connecting online, you might discover enough new relatives to hold your own family reunion!
FamilySearch allows users to opt in and out of these kinds of activities, as well as select what information they want to share, to protect privacy.
Benefit #5: Fun and Interesting Ways to Do Family History!
Everyone deserves to have fun while learning about their heritage. No matter how young or how old, FamilySearch provides a wide range of activities that make learning about your family history easy and interesting! You might learn that you look 60% similar to your great-grandmother or that you're a distant relative to William Shakespeare! You can see fun recording prompts to make an audio journal or see where your ancestors lived on an interactive map. If you're having a hard time picturing yourself in your ancestors' shoes, there's even an activity that can help with that!
Share What You Know, and Learn Even More about Your Family
Everyone knows at least a little bit about their family and their family history. Whether you know a little or a lot, FamilySearch's aim is to help you find out more. Enter your surname into our surname search, and we will try to help you understand where it comes from. Enter a family member's information into the Family Tree or our record search, and we will try to connect you with historical documents, photos, stories, and biographical information that we can find about your family.
Anything you add about yourself or a living family member is private. You have multiple ways to share this content if you want, but unless you choose to do so, you’re the only person who can see it.
On the other hand, genealogy details about deceased ancestors are usually visible to everyone. That’s what we mean when we say the bulk of our Family Tree is a public, open resource. People around the world are building it together, and anyone can take advantage of the information it contains. As we talked about above, it might already have valuable information about your ancestors in it, courtesy of someone who shares your same ancestor.
Is FamilySearch Really Free?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides FamilySearch free of charge to everyone, regardless of tradition, culture, or religious affiliation. The Church believes that families are central to building healthy communities. Its nonprofit FamilySearch helps people draw strength and joy from discovering more about their family relationships—past, present, and future. You can learn more about Church teachings related to families at ComeUntoChrist.org.
Get Your Free FamilySearch Account Today
These are just a few of the benefits that come with having a free FamilySearch account and exploring your genealogy on the FamilySearch website. As exciting as they are, probably the best part of having an account is just experiencing the peace, inspiration, confidence, and sense of connection that comes when you become more familiar with your family story.
