FREE Web sites for genealogy research: rootsweb.ancestry.com--forums organized by surname, locality, and other topics such as royal ancestry, etc., originally not affiliated with ancestry, but it is STILL free, and has archived posts going back to the 1990s. usgenweb.org subdivides by states and counties, also message boards where inquiries can be posted. genealogy.com has free surname and locality forums. familysearch.org contains the LDS church's International Genealogy Index, formerly only available on microfiche at branch Family History Libraries. cyndislist.com has a wealth of websites/links on many, many genealogy subjects. Treasure Maps website: google the name to get the right address, because it's one of those sub-sub-sub-divided ones that I'll probably screw up. Also, google the surname, and/or an entire name, alone or combined with terms like "family" and genealogy. If it's a name other than Smith or Jones, misspell it in creative ways. My great-grandfather's surname (Braman) was misspelled on the census as late as the 1930s! As far as Ancestry goes, I subscribe to the United States option, almost solely because of access to scanned images of the US Census. Looking at microfilm using a viewer left me dizzy and nauseated:b. You can search or browse the records, and enlarge the image to decipher handwriting. To me, it is worth the price, but that's a personal decision. Other than that, I have found some useful info in the paid databases, but not a whole lot. All Censuses are available at the regional branches of the National Archives, on microfilm. Sorry this is so lengthy, but this IS the heavily edited version, LOL.

I would think that if there were a Genealogy forum, anything posted about genealogy would be considered to be "on topic" and would be allowed. It would be natural for folks to ask for help from others -- that already goes on here at the KT. I have seen many requests for genealogy assistance, and I've even assisted several folks in getting the information that they need. I have never looked at the Freecycle web site (and don't plan to), so I have no idea how queries are titled there, but I think if people are as specific as they can be in a subject line, it would be a good thing.

I only have 1 Uncle left and lots of cousins. I am the only one in the family that keeps in touch with most of them. On Facebook I am in contact with all my 2nd cousins as well. 2 years my cousin Caroline passed away. She was the first one of the "cousins" to die. She kept asking me to come and visit her whenever I bumped into her and now I regret that I never did. I always wanted to but never got around to it. I posted a message looking for info about my Dad's family on a genealogy forum. I got a message in return from an 80 year old woman from England saying she was my Dad's cousin. I didn't even know she existed! She was my Great Uncle George's daughter Mary. She called me on the telephone and we talked for an hour. She remembered my Dad visiting Liverpool when he was in the Navy during WW2 and bringing the family oranges. Mary's daughter calls me from England as well. Anne

I also get sucked into genealogy, running down leads and finding the unexpected. Here's a short story about my ggrandmother Ella. In 1904, she had 6 young children (including 2 year old twins, one of which was my grandmother). For some reason I have not been able to discover, her husband died. Several months later, she was "compelled," a newspaper story said, to surrender three of the children as she couldn't provide for them. The article was called, "A Mother's Sad Thanksgiving." The twins were split up, each going to one of their deceased father's sisters. Now, here's where it gets REALLY interesting. Apparently ggrandmother was living with a gentleman who was nearly 30 years older than her, keeping his house, I assume. I found a news story telling of, as it said, "A Dastardly Plot" by a young man and 2 of his friends who were quite fond of my ggrandmother. They conspired to kill the man she was living with, shooting both him and his dog. The man did not die, and subsequent newspaper stories claimed the shooter was convicted of the deed BY THE DOG, who growled and was very aggressive toward the shooter. LOL!!! Anyway, to make a long story short, ggrandmother married the older gentleman. 7 months later, she gave birth to another child. I remember ggrandmother Ella - she died when I was 10 or so. And she remained active in my grandmother's life, even though she didn't raise her. She was quite feisty and full of life. Now I know at least SOME of the rest of her story. I am looking for still more on her. How every interesting to learn these things!