Where can I find free genealogy records?

[Bob J]

All of the sites that I go to require payment.

[wendy c]

www.cyndislist.com is a collection of thousands of genealogy sites. Most of the 'for fee' sites will come up, if you google genealogy, family history, etc. Most of these type sites claim to offer family trees.
Genealogy records are found anywhere that your ancestors were. For instance, your family lived in Dallas, Texas.. you need to google Dallas cemeteries or Dallas history, etc.
Start by using cyndi's beginner section, which has excellent tutorials. When you educate yourself about the process, you are in a better position to recognize how to get RECORDS, not just pre packaged "trees". They may or may not be correct.. they are the results of someone else's research, not original stuff.
Ancestry is the best known 'fee' site. It does offer original records.. but it is a service, and the fee is valid. You would have costs to access this info, if you had to go elsewhere.
Most records might be 'free'... the effort to get them, not always.

[numbat]

Family Search
http://www.familysearch.org
Search the Family History Library's database, which contains millions of names from thousands of family trees.

GenCircles
http://www.GenCircles.com
Searching the global tree and viewing results is free to everyone. In addition to first and last names, the database is searchable by dates and places of birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial, as well as by the names of an individual’s father, mother and spouse.

GeneaNet
http://www.geneanet.org
A database that indexes all the world's genealogical resources, whether Net-based or not and whether free or fee-paying.

Free On Ancestry
http://www.freeonancestry.com/
A directory of all the FREE records and resources available on Ancestry.com.

Ancestor Hunt
http://www.ancestorhunt.com
Index of Free Genealogy Search Engines

Find Your Family Tree
http://www.findyourfamilytree.com
A free genealogy web site designed to help you find missing branches of your family tree using Pedigree Resource File (PRF), a rapidly expanding collection of family trees submitted by people worldwide to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

GenealogyBuff.com
http://www.genealogybuff.com
Search for your surname in dozens of family history databases with one click. Though you still have to visit each site to see the results (or find out your search came up empty), GenealogyBuff.com can be a good starting point for online research.

USGenWeb
http://www.usgenweb.org
The USGenWeb is one of the premier sites for US researchers. Here you'll find Web pages for every US state and county.

AncestralFindings
http://www.ancestralfindings.com
AncestralFindings may not own every database you're interested in, but its collection is impressive. Holdings include CD-ROM records of births, deaths, marriages, census indexes, land records, passenger lists, immigrations and Genealogy.com's entire World Family Tree collection.