Records that aren't on Ancestry or FamilySearch.
A lot of family history isn't on Ancestry or FamilySearch: county courthouses, state archives, church records, local historical societies, funeral homes and old books. To find a record, work out which place would have kept it at the time, then ask the office that holds it now.
Where to look.
| What's there | How to find it | |
|---|---|---|
| County courthouses | Deeds, wills, probate files, marriages | The county's page on the FamilySearch Research Wiki says who holds what. Call or write to the clerk |
| State archives | State records, and often county records sent there for safekeeping | The National Archives keeps a list of state archives |
| Churches | Baptisms, marriages, burials, often before the state kept any | Ask the congregation, or the denomination's archive if it has closed |
| Local societies | Obituary indexes, cemetery surveys, family files nobody else has | Search the county name with "genealogical society" or "historical society". Volunteers often look things up |
| Funeral homes and cemetery offices | Who paid, who was told, who's buried beside whom | An obituary or death certificate usually names the funeral home |
| Letters and diaries | Family papers given to libraries and universities | ArchiveGrid searches collections across archives. Try the family's surname and town |
| Old books | County histories, city directories, yearbooks | Free at HathiTrust and the Internet Archive |
How to ask.
- Ask for one thing. One person, one record, the dates you know. A clerk can answer that.
- Say what you already have. It saves them looking where you've been.
- Offer to pay for copies. Many offices charge a small fee, and some ask you to send someone.
Check what's free online first.
Save yourself the letter if you can: free government records, free alternatives to Ancestry and how to find an old obituary.
Or just ask.
Tell Ancestral Fire one name, and it reads your tree, searches FamilySearch Family Tree once you connect it, and tells you what it found, with the source behind each fact. A real answer:
Who was the first in my family to leave Ireland, and what became of him?
Among those with immigration dates recorded, the earliest to leave was your great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy (born about 1823 in Dunganstown, County Wexford), who immigrated to Boston around 1847. He settled in Boston, married Bridget Murphy, worked as a cooper, and died there in 1858 at about age 35.
From the Kennedy family's published tree, asked as John F. Kennedy.
See a whole conversation on How it works, or what it finds in one family: The Kennedy family tree, from Wexford to Dallas.
Keep reading.
- Genealogy mistakes that keep you stuck. Most people get stuck for the same few reasons: they copy someone else's tree without checking it, take a matching name for the right person, search one spelling, trust an index, follow only their direct line, look in the wrong county, and don't write down where a fact came from.
- Best family tree software, free and paid. To draw a quick tree, use a free browser tool like Family Echo or our family tree maker.