But it doesn’t have to be so hard.

The Internet has made it so easy to collaborate family tree information and share that information.

Now, there are tools that can help to automatically expand links in your family tree, saving you tons of time searching, and the headache of running into roadblocks.

OneGreatFamily is a genealogy site that helps expand what you know of your family tree.

Of course there are lots of resources out there that can help with that, but what makes OneGreatFamily different is that it can automatically add thousands of matches into your tree with a few simple clicks.

In other words, it searches for matches while you sleep and lets you know if there are matches.

You have the option to review the matches for accuracy, and if it’s a fit, you might be able to add literally thousands of names to your family tree (that’s if there’s a good match).

Famous Folks have used it

Advertising for the site mentions that, “See how Donny Osmond added 38 generations to his family tree using OneGreatFamily!”

That’s pretty amazing. Maybe Donny didn’t have any genealogy work done, but I kind of doubt it.

There are other success stories that you can read on their site:

“We have had fabulous experiences with OneGreatFamily.com. We went from a few hundred people in our PAF program to over 10,000 each in OneGreatFamily.com.”
—Mark & Betty Stilwell

Are making the automatic connections easy?

They have millions of names in their database. The strength comes from their unique approach to organizing that information and the algorithms they use to plug it all together so that when a match is made, it’s easy to connect the dots and import the information in just a few clicks of the mouse.

How much does the site cost?

Of course there is a subscription fee to use the site, but there is a Free Trial that they offer.

You can try out the service, and if it doesn’t work out, you can cancel within the trial period without a problem.

Check out the site for more details and if they’re running any promotions.

To make the most of the service…

1. Collect your family history records (dates, names, etc.)
2. Start with the free trial and enter your dates and names to see if there’s a match at OneGreatFamily)
3. Record what you find.

Pretty easy!

Use this site in conjunction with other resources you have. You never know what might turn up!

The site has a relationship calculator that can be used to find famous connections as well which is pretty neat.

You can visit the site and read more about it here: OneGreatFamily

Hopefully, the quick review below will help you decide if giving Ancestry.com a try can help you in your research.

Free Services at Ancestry.com

First, lets get started with the free services provided by Ancestry.com.

Ancestry offers a membership through subscription to access much of it’s mult-billion genealogy records database. However, the site provides some awesome tools for free. They do hope that you’ll eventually sign up for a membership, but it’s not required to use the free tools.

The greatest free resource available through ancestry.com is the Online Family Tree Program. You can use this portion of their website to create your family tree record from scratch or to upload a Gedcom file with the information you’ve already collected.

Creating your family tree with the Ancestry service keeps your information private asking you to create a username and password to keep your information safe.

Returning to the site later, you can pick up where you left off.

What’s neat about the family tree tool:

• Collaborate with other family members – Share family history information with only those whom you want to see it. You can give free accounts to your family members across the world, and they’ll be able to upload information that they have about the ancestors in your tree. No more losing information in the mail or having to send lots of email attachments with records. Now, you can share all your research with the whole family. Leave a legacy of research that won’t be lost in a box in the attic!
• Easy to use – Export a Gedcom file from your computer and upload it to populate your tree. You can also enter information by hand as you go.
• Looks great compared to other programs – The tree has a very professional look to it and the colors used are easy on the eyes (compared to others out there I’ve used).
• You can upload rich multi-media content – Don’t be satisfied with just looking at dates and names on your tree, upload pictures, records, and stories. You can add oral histories over the phone. It couldn’t be easier.
• Researches your genealogy for you while you sleep – The family tree makes record searches in the background for each individual. That means that you can take a break while the system researches if your ancestors are included in certain censuses in the US or England, if they’re included in war records or old newspapers. A little green leaf will appear next to the persons in your family tree for whom the site has found possible records matches (to view/download many of the records, you’ll need a subscription to the site).
• Ability to make gifts – For a fee, you can have your tree and the stories you uploaded organized into a very classy looking book that you can give to family or friends.

The ad form below can get you started with the free Pedigree Chart portion of the Ancestry site.

Searching for records

If you’re ready to jump right in searching for records, then you’ll want to consider a trial membership of the Ancestry site.

The site generally offers two main memberships: US Deluxe and Worldwide Deluxe.

The US plan gives you access to US records while the Worldwide plan gives you access to US AND records from other countries such as the UK, Canada, Ireland and many other countries.

If you sign up for their annual plan, you’ll save $$ as opposed to going with the monthly plan.

The great thing about the site is that new information is added each week. Ancestry is obsessed with adding new databases to its collection on a weekly basis, so the chances of finding more matches to your family tree and ancestors increase each week.

Scope of records at Ancestry.com

Ancestry has over 5 billion records that you can search through (that’s a lot of records). You’ll find:

• Census records
• Newspaper articles
• Birth records
• Death records & obituaries
• Marriage records
• Immigration records
• Military records
• Criminal records
• Written histories

What’s great is that in most cases, you’ll be able to see a scan of the original record and download it for your own records. Information found in the censuses is extremely interesting. Depending on the census, you’ll see if your ancestors could read/write, what their occupation was, and the people living in their households.

Ancestry also offers services such as DNA testing to discover where your ancestral heritage hails from (different DNA experts may interpret the same results in different ways, but it is interesting stuff).

You can get a taste by searching some of their records by clicking the ad below:

Is Ancestry.com right for you?

I’ve personally found Ancestry helpful in finding valuable census records for family members, and the family tree program online has proved very valuable. You can always try it to see if it works for you or use it for a defined time.

For a specific ancestor search, fill in the information into the ad below and click the search button. You never know what might turn up!

Many online family tree programs do a great job in organizing your family tree, but sometimes they can be a little slow loading page after page of family tree information and can only display a limited number of generations at any one point in time.

Geni provides an easy to use interface for entering your family tree.  Start with yourself and then click the yellow arrows to add parents, siblings, spouses, and children.

With Geni, you don’t have to go to a new page to add a new individual, a small prompt appears when you want to add a new individual. You can add additional information later.

Geni lets you easily zoom in or out on your entire family tree.

You can pan by clicking and dragging the items on the screen to view different portions of your tree. You can also choose different views of your tree.  You can you a list of individuals in your tree. If you’ve entered dates for your individuals, see events on the calendar view for the individuals.  Use the Map view to see where the members of your family tree come from.

Use the collaboration feature to work with friends and family to expand your family tree.

There are many family tree options available; give Geni a try or explore other options.

A new tool called Family.Show was recently developed as a demonstration of the capabilities of a programing format. The application is pretty cool to work with and you can export what you create to a standard Gedcom file which is a file format compatible with almost all family tree programs.

Family.Show offers a 3D-like view of your family tree. Instead of boxes with connecting lines to show your family history, Family.Show displays icons that look like people and progresses up and down instead of left to right like most family history programs. You can zoom in or out to see the whole tree or just a portion.

Family.Show also lets you view complex family tree structures unlike any other program. It’s easy to make sense out the visual representation if a person was married, then divorced, but had children in both relationships.

The program is free to download. It is possible that you may need to be running the latest version of your operating system for the program to work. Using Windows Vista, the program installed without any problems at all.

Family.Show comes with an example family tree (the Royal Family of England) so you can get a feel for how the program can handle complex family structures.

Family.Show can be downloaded at: http://www.vertigo.com/familyshow.aspx

Check out our Brand-New Step-by-Step Guide Are You Related to Someone Famous: The 7 Secrets to Discovering your Famous Relatives

Click here to view information on the FREE mini e-course: Could you be related to someone famous? which covers the basics of getting started and some of the tools you’ll need.

For a glimpse of what’s in the full guide: In the past, you had to do a lot of work to find out if you were related to someone famous or even hire a specialist to find out for you. Now there is a free tool that will list if you are descended from or related to famous individuals such as:

• European royalty
• Famous English
• Famous Writers
• Signers of the Declaration of Independence
• Mayflower passengers
• U.S. Presidents
• Technology Figures and Scientists
• Famous Americans

To find out if you have famous ancestors or relatives, follow the steps below:

1. Create a free account at http://roots.cs.byu.edu/digroots/
2. Create a family Group
3. Add a Person to your group (grandparents for example)
   1. You’ll need to have an Ancestral File Number (AFN) for one of your ancestors. If one of your ancestors is included in the index, you’ll be able to search for famous ancestors. You can search FamilySearch.org to find out the Ancestral File Number for a deceased ancestor (grandparent or great grandparent). Look in the matches for “Ancestral File” when you search for your ancestor, and you’ll find the number.
4. Select the Run a Report option
5. Select the check boxes for the groups of famous people
6. Request the report

You can run the report for a specific ancestor or link the ancestor to yourself (even if you don’t have an AFN for yourself). Running the reports, I discovered that I’m related to:

• Various European Royalty such as Richard the Lion Hearted and other less well known figures such as Louis II The Stammerer, Louis VIII The Fat, and Wladislaw I The Short (they weren’t too forgiving with titles back then I guess).
• Various Signers of the Declaration of Independence including Robert Paine (3rd cousin 9 times removed)
• Walt Disney (8th cousin 3 times removed)
• Thomas Edison (7th cousin 5 times removed)
• T.S. Eliot (7th cousin 4 times removed)
• Various U.S. Presidents including Quincy Adams (4th cousin 7 times removed), Abraham Lincoln (6th cousin 5 times removed), Franklin Roosevelt (7th cousin 4 times removed), and George W. Bush (8th cousin)
• Gordon B. Hinckley (7th cousin 4 times removed)
• Joseph Smith (3rd cousin 7 times removed)
• Philo T. Farnsworth “Father of Television” (8th cousin 3 times removed)

I was excited to be related to 14 U.S. Presidents. We then ran the report for my wife and found out that she was related to John Adams! I was jealous because I very much enjoyed reading David McCulough’s book John Adams and gained a great respect for his role in the Revolution. I suppose I can say I’m related to the Adams family (no pun intended) through marriage. My wife says that’s a stretch.

To understand what the “7th cousin 4 times removed” jargon is all about, click here.

For those of you with European ancestry, you could find out if you’re related to royalty. I figure that for me, I’d have to be about the last living person alive, of British descent, to be next in line to be king. Hey, at least I’m in line.

Finding out is a lot of fun:

It’s a lot of fun to share with family members and friends that you’ve found you’re related to Walt Disney, George Washington, or the kings and queens of Europe.

It also gets you interested in the history of your family line and lineage.

To find out more about how to find famous relatives, you can get our guide we created with the 7 Secrets here or sign up for the Free mini course below.

Testimonial:

“Before I read this book, I was worried that searching for my ancestors and my relationships to famous people would be too difficult and time consuming. I took a chance, followed the 7 secrets, and was surprised how easy it actually was!

I quickly learned that I am not only related to at least 15 U.S. Presidents, but I’m also a direct descendant of 3 passengers on the Mayflower! I’m excited to continue using the 7 secrets to find out more about who I’m related to.”

-Justin C., Santa Clara, UT