Sheer boredom has me deciding to try and trace my family. I have little idea who my family were and my brother has all the various certificates "somewhere" but doesn't know what or where they are or the extent of them. I have the cerficates relating to Gina and me and that and a sketchy memory is it.

I tried to look at some of the sites that are recommended in this section and found some seem to be out of doubt or beyond me.

I need [s]geo[/s] [s]jeno[/s] [s]gan[/s] [s]geno[/s] looking up your family sites for idiots one stipulation FREE is my favourite price. Some sites I looked at are free to start with and just as things look promising you are blagged for a sub.

And here it is. Maybe there are some hints on one of the threads in here Tony

Eve I tried looking at some of the sites that are recommended in this section and found some seem to be out of use and others beyond me.

Some sites that claim to be free when I looked at them they were free to start with and just as things look promising they blag you for a sub.

I know, yuou get fed up with it. What about the mormon site - LDS I think. It's not always very accurate but you can get some good leads on it.

I only managed to get back to the late 1790's on only one side with my family tree and then came up against a brick wall. I'm afraid I gave up and turned my research over to my eldest niece. Maybe one day she'll get the time to carry it on.

Do you know anything about your grandparents, VM? There is more chance of getting info on them if they were born before 1881.

Given your age, your parents will likely be born in the first quarter of 1900s and not likely to appear in the free sites, but I have the 1881 Census on disc, and if your grandparents or great grandparents were born then I can maybe find them with names. If I can, it would give you a starting point to use to search the LDS site.

I'll check the list of sites and change the links.

I have known a few people who have started on this journey and then stopped because they didn't want to pay.

I have found www.findmypast.com to be a really easy site. OK, you do have to pay a small sum for credits, but you can buy as you need them and it is really good value.

Free isn't always the best price.

I have just started doing my family tree -= if you have rellies in Scotland (where my family on the male side come from)

This is a good site scotlands people

It allows you to see copies of actual entries of the BMDs as they have been recorded.

Don't go too far back VM, as I did and discovered one of my distant Welsh parentage was hung for sheep stealing