I have a World Deluxe membership and have had it for 5 years. I think it costs $350.00 for the year, something like that.. I use it on a daily basis and oh my gosh yes.. it is very addictive. To me it is more then worth the money, the different things I have found on my family I would of never found otherwise. Ancestry automatically searches for records for each member you have in your tree and when they find something they thing belongs to that person you will see a green shaking leaf. The hints do not always belong to that person, you do have to be careful about that and not just add those records before checking them out carefully. There are public and private trees on Ancestry.com, you choose which you want yours to be. When doing research you can look at other people's trees with your family member in them.. you may come across a picture of your Great or Great Great Grandmother or Grandfather that you never knew existed. On Ancestry you will find census reports, stories, pictures, birth, death and marriage records and immigration records. This is all included in the World Deluxe membership. There is a cheaper membership but why do all that work and not be able to access their site completely? They have message boards where you can see if anyone else is researching the same surname you are. They have message boards for Surnames, States, Counties in each State and several others. You may be surprised at the descendants you meet. You can add your own photos to each person and write your own stories if you wish. You can also go to FindAGrave and add any tombstone photos you might find to each person. This is not a quick project.. not something you do overnight. I have spent about 5 years working on 2 trees, my family and my husband's family. I am now working on one for a friend and also one for my son in law's family. There are wonderful publishing projects on Ancestry also, you can have it printed out into a book which you can add pictures to, timelines and pedigree charts. You can also have some very neat pedigree charts printed out etc.. I downloaded my tree into a Family Tree Maker program once I was "almost" finished... now when I find something new, I add it into Famly Tree Maker.. From there I printed off pedigree charts and genealogy reports on each set of grandparents, going back 9 generations. I compiled all of thing including pictures into a book form. I can highly recommend Ancestry.com.. . . What you find is the story of your family and you may never know what is out there if you don't look... Debbie

Last year, a gentleman from the UK contacted me through our joint membership on Ancestry, with thanks for information on my tree, and offering info.I did not have, in return. My GGrandfather had emigrated to the US in the 1880's. And over the years, after 2 World Wars, contact just faded away.

caflowerluver, I don't know if your question was rhetorical or serious, but here's a partial list of free or nearly free places. I don’t know what you're looking for. Some of these links will be to the specific page I was looking at but you should be able to find the home page. Google is your friend. Sign up for any newsletters these sites offer. http://www.theancestorhunt.com/ https://news.google.com/newspapers?hl=en https://www.elephind.com/?a=q&r=1&results=1&txf=txINtxCO&e=-------en-10--1--txt-txINtxCO-walworth%2c+wisconsin--------- http://shs.umsystem.edu/newspaper/mdnp/mdnptable.shtml search for the historical society or the GENweb project for individual localities http://www.usgenweb.org/states/index.shtml http://crpubliclibrary.newspaperarchive.com/ http://www.newspaperlinks.com/where-to-find-and-access-records-of-old-newspapers/ https://eservices.archives.gov/orderonline/start.swe?SWECM=S&SWECmd=Login&SRN=&SWEHo=eservices.archives.gov&SWEFullRefresh=1&TglPrtclRfrsh=1 https://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/search.php?q=william+walker&showposts=0&s=&securitytoken=guest&do=process&contenttype=vBForum_Post&forumchoice%255B%255D=418&childforums=1&exactname=1 http://www.castlegarden.org/searcher.php http://www.censusrecords.us/ http://www.censusdiggins.com/#Our Free Database Menu http://ma-vitalrecords.org/ www.findagrave.com https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-32490-16331-90?cc=2074276&wc=M9MG-LGM:n1779387919#uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Frecords%2Fcollection%2F2074276%2Fwaypoints http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/freedata.shtml there is so much here you will get dizzy. http://www.germanroots.com/databases.html https://books.google.com/googlebooks/about/index.html http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx https://archive.org/ http://www.censusfinder.com/iowa-census-records5.htm http://www.genealogytoday.com/guide/railroad-employees.html http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.thefamilyhistorystore.com/ http://www.mta.ca/marshland/pages/links.htm http://www.americanancestors.org/index.aspx http://www.jillsgenealogy.com/links/misc-genealogy-research-links.html http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/records-search/deaths.php http://www.theshipslist.com/pictures/wardsis.shtml http://www.sos.mo.gov/categories.asp?id=4 http://www.genealogysearch.org/canada/novascotia.html http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=1122-430&docClass=MW&sid=1euautj3.out http://archive.org/stream/populationsc17900012unit#page/n107/mode/2up http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/ http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=29aug2012 http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/KeywordGenealogy http://catalog.loc.gov/ http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2012/Q1/top%20100%20most%20popular%20genealogy%20websites%20page3.html http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wjmartin/wm-w_21.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w.htm https://archive.org/stream/mayflowerherlogj00amesuoft#page/n35/mode/2up http://mayflowerhistory.com/Passengers/WilliamLatham.php https://books.google.com/books?id=F51pAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Manasseh+COOK%22+OR+%22Manasseh++COOK%22+OR+%22COOK,+Manasseh%22&dq=%22Manasseh+COOK%22+OR+%22Manasseh++COOK%22+OR+%22COOK,+Manasseh%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dnAOUoTYGIOT2gWuwIGIDw&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCA http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html http://www.davidrumsey.com/home My eyes have glazed just making this much of a list. If there is a specific location you are looking for Google it. Wikipedia might give you a hint of what else or where else to look. If you just blinked and thought to yourself, this is too much! post an inquiry at the kitchen table and we’ll all brainstorm.

I had written, "Folklore has it that the workers at Ellis Island changed people's names when they came through. Not true (at least, not that I've ever found)." Elmer then pulled a Donald Trump and selected only part of that quote, to wit: "Folklore has it that the workers at Ellis Island changed people's names" and then added his own statement, "It's not folklore." He attempted to bolster that with, "I've encountered many people who said their ancestry research found that their old country names had been, let's say, simplified or Anglicized in a spelling or phonetic sense." Elmer, did these folks whom you encountered tell you that they found evidence that the workers at Ellis Island (or any other point of entry) deliberately changed their ancestors' names? Or did they simply say that "... their ancestry research found that their old country names had been, let's say, simplified or Anglicized in a spelling or phonetic sense." There's a HUGE difference. For example, my paternal grandfather was born in Italy. I grew up knowing his name, where he was born, and the exact date he arrived at Ellis Island. For years I searched for the ship manifest with his name on it, but I could not find it. My grandfather's first name is Joseph, and I knew that in Italy his name would have been Giuseppe. I also, of course, knew the surname, because it is the surname of my father and it is also my maiden name. I also know that many people misspell Giuseppe as Guiseppe, and I searched both spellings, as well as for Joseph, but I simply could not find the manifest. Then one day I decided to search for the manifest for my grandfather's best friend, Angelo. They were best friends growing up in Italy, both had come to the USA, and Angelo married one of my paternal grandmother's first cousins. I easily found the manifest with Angelo's name on it, and much to my surprise, there was my grandfather's name right below it! My grandfather's entry had been lined out, which meant that he had not made the voyage. He was only 15 at that time (and I knew he came to the States when he was 17), so I wasn't surprised that he hadn't made that trip. (Although I've never read this as fact, my research bears out my thinking that no one under the age of 16 was allowed to make the trip unless they were traveling with a relative who was at least 16 years old.) BUT, there was a big surprise in that manifest entry. As I said, I knew it was my grandfather, because he was listed right after Angelo, as well as the facts that the place of birth (the little hilltop village) was correct, and in the column for "Name of nearest relative in the country from whence you came" had "Cesare - father" - and I knew my great-grandfather's name was Cesare. The surprise was that the surname was "wrong." My very Italian maiden name ends with an o. But the name written on the manifest ends with an i. Even when said with a very heavy Italian accent, the name with an o and the name with an i do not sound the same. Generally speaking, Italian names that end with an i are pronounced with the i as if it were a "long e" (think of Henry Mancini -- "man-see-knee") and Italian names that end with an o are pronounced with a "long o" at the end. So, I wondered how in the heck anyone could have written down my grandfather's surname incorrectly. But, I then did a manifest search using that misspelling, and I immediately found his manifest. Census records have my grandfather's surname spelled correctly, so the manifest spelling was puzzling to me until I went to the Family Research Library in Salt Lake City and found my grandfather's naturalization papers. My grandfather was not naturalized until he'd been in the USA for 29 years. My father was 24 when my grandfather was naturalized (so his naturalization did not affect my father's Italian citizenship, nor mine or that of my siblings). For 29 years, every time my grandfather's name was written on anything, it was written with an o on the end, not an i. And my grandfather's naturalization papers clearly state that he wanted his name officially, legally changed to the "new" spelling, and the request was approved. Angelo also changed his surname. His surname in Italy ended with an i, and he did not change that. But, within the name there was an a which he changed to an e. One of Angelo's brothers also immigrated, and he left the a as an a, but he dropped the i from the end. And, yes, I agree that there may very well have been instances at Ellis Island when a worker simply could not understand an immigrant's language and/or accent and could not understand their name and did not know how to spell it so the worker made the best attempt they could, which ended up "giving the immigrant a new name." But that is very, very different than deliberately assigning a new name to an immigrant. As was pointed out in earlier responses by others (and as evidenced by information on the 1940 Federal Census which shows how many years of education folks had), many immigrants did not know how to read or write and simply couldn't tell anyone the correct spelling of their names. And, as has been previously mentioned, unfamiliarity with foreign names and accents was a factor in names being misconstrued and misspelled. Elmer, as much as you like to fantasize that you are the be-all, end-all, ultimate authority in everything, you need to accept the fact that you're not. And, no, I'm not claiming to be the ultimate authority on genealogy research, but I'm willing to bet that I've spent many more hours doing genealogy research than you have; and I've helped many people get the documentation they need to join Sons of The American Revolution / Daughters of the American Revolution. (And, yes, on my husband's side of the family tree there is the name of someone who arrived on the Mayflower.) So, Elmer why don't you ask some of these people you've encountered who said "... their ancestry research found that their old country names had been, let's say, simplified or Anglicized in a spelling or phonetic sense" and ask them if their research revealed a deliberate changing of their name by a government official.