Researching Your Family Tree on the Cheap- Tip #1

Do you want to start researching your ancestors or composing a family tree but feel intimidated because of cost, time, or lack of information?

I faced these challenges over 2 years ago when I began the website for Granny’s Front Porch in 2013. Let me just say, it has been time consuming but well worth it. Learning one’s family history can be helpful in preserving traditions and identifying family traits, professions or talents that were common in your family line. It also makes history more relatable and interesting when your ancestors are linked to major events of the past.

I’m sure paying annual or monthly fees to genealogical sites are helpful and may save some time, but I personally haven’t used them. I’ve gathered all my family information from relatives or online from free sites. From time to time, I plan to share here on Granny’s Front Porch some helpful tips for researching your family tree on the cheap.

Here is tip # 1: Search for deceased relatives on Find A Grave.

From one individual’s burial information, I’ve stumbled across obituaries and links to other family members’ gravesites, helping to identify siblings, spouses, children, and parents. These details are extremely helpful when trying to locate someone else’s family tree that is avaliable online for free. They may not list your grandmother when you are searching but they may have traced back your great grandmother on their tree.

Feel free to give it a try:

Note, if it says there are too many choices, then select the Refine Search option in the upper lefthand corner of the page.

Search 136.6 million cemetery records at by entering a surname and clicking search: Surname:

Make sure to check out the other tips here: Tip # 2 and Tip #3