For many people, finding out their genealogy can help them discover their identity, ancestry and who they really are. Tracing your ancestors and where they came from can be an exciting, interesting and wonderful way to uncover family past, secrets and traditions.
Nowadays, people are from all over the world, with family connections in many different countries and cultures. By tracing your ancestors' steps and lives, you can now explore your genealogy and heritage in quick and easy ways through online apps and tools.
One of the best ways to uncover your family history is by creating an extensive family tree. This can include cousins, parents, grandparents, children, second cousins, and many more all the way back to great-great-great-great grandparents, or sometimes even further.
With a family tree you can see how your heritage branches out from family to family through marriages and children to see how you are connected to other people in the world. This is a great way of creating long lasting friendships and relationships with distant or unknown relatives.
But finding your genealogy is no longer a restrictive process. You do not have to find public records in archives, historical books or libraries in order to rediscover your past. With the invention of the internet and mobile apps, there is so much data available to you so that you can build your own family tree.
What is even better is that you can keep adding onto it as your family grows, so that the generations to come can uncover who they are and where they come from.
However, with the expansiveness of the internet, if you search for family tree applications, you will find a wide variety of different tools offering many different services. This is why we have researched the best free family tree tools so that you do not have to.
So, now you can pull up a chair, gather your loved ones and start tracing your heritage back through your own personalized family tree.
Things to look for in good family tree tools
When looking for the right family tree tools for your needs, try to find ones that offer you the freedom to create, add and edit your own family tree, not just view it.
You will also want to find a family tree tool that lets you document important information that you may have uncovered such as birth dates, wedding dates or historical records.
You may also like to store photos or images of past and present family members in order to grow your family tree and keep records of distinctive features of your relatives.
Finally, you will want to ensure that your private information is safe, or stored in a backup online. It may also be beneficial to have the option to export your family tree for safe keeping.
Best Free Family Tree Tools
OUR TOP PICK
WikiTree
This website is completely 100% free and is operated by a huge number of members. This is the perfect resource to help you find your family tree. The purpose of WikiTree is to uncover genealogy and eventually create a connection between every person on Earth, by linking us together in a global family tree network.
The best thing about WikiTree is that you can keep chosen parts of your tree private so no one else can see your immediate family. As you go further back in time and you branch out in your tree, the information becomes more public as this helps to build the network between members.
With this site you can access resources pertaining to family histories and important events that may have occurred in your ancestry. You can also store and edit your records of your family tree for better accuracy.
Unlike other family tree tools, no one else can edit your records without your permission so that the final say is always truthful and has consulted the actual family members first.
With WikiTree’s Honor Code, members pledge not to use false information or edit other people’s profiles without permission. This makes WikiTree a collaborative and supportive community where users help others find their ancestry and build bigger, wider family trees.
EDITORS CHOICE
Ancestry
One of the most famous genealogy applications and websites is Ancestry. With a subscription to the service, you can access so many records to help you create a family history. However, you can use the application for free and start building your family tree for no extra cost at all.
Ancestry now also offers DNA testing kits to help you connect with living relatives using DNA technology to help build your family tree. It is actually free to use Ancestry’s family tree function, however you will get a lot more expansive information and family leads with the subscription service.
However, without the subscription, the site will give you ‘leaves’ which act as little hints to help you connect the puzzle pieces together in your family tree. Ancestry has access to millions of historical records and information that can help you uncover your relatives’ past.
You can document these with Ancestry’s family tree tools and mapping features to help you draw lines between your ancestors. With their templates and fast syncing technology, you can add, edit and update your family tree whenever you want to.
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My Heritage
My Heritage has its own family tree building software that is free to use! This way you can build a visual tool to help fill in the blanks and uncover your genealogy.
My Heritage uses Smart Matches to relate your tree to millions of others and help you find distant or long lost relatives quickly and easily!
You can use beautiful charts with images and historical records to help build and edit your tree, whilst controlling your privacy settings for your convenience.
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FindMyPast
With FindMyPast, you can start your family tree from scratch for free. You can also upload a GEDCOM file or a tree started elsewhere and receive FindMyPast’s own hints and branches with their historical records.
Using FindMyPast is so easy, you can build an online family tree and access it anywhere. While you can digitally preserve and save all of the important information pertaining to your family history, you can also use FindMyPast to look for ancestral search results.
With their genealogical society partners, you can use their ancestry search to find relatives and relations in no time at all. This will help you expand and explore your family tree much quicker.
Not only this, FindMyPast is a free tool that also has some of the most extensive records and information that you may need.
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Family Tree Now
Family Tree Now is a popular website for online family tree building. It is 100% free, and one of the best platforms for creating an extensively researched family tree. With one of the largest collections of expansive genealogy records included,
Family Tree Now has access to census records, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage and divorce records along with living records to help you trace your family history.
What is great about this family tree building tool is that it will never charge for extra services, or ask for credit card details in order to search for information. Family Tree Now is completely free, and can help you create some of the most detailed family trees.
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Creately Family Tree Builder
You do not have to just use Family Tree builders to trace your history. Some people find it fun just to create trees and diagrams that trace connections from person to person. This can be done easily and for no cost with Creately.
Creately is a free to use online, desktop and mobile application that helps you build family trees whether it is for your ancestry, work teams, or for fun. This tool is particularly useful as it works on desktop devices, iPhone and Android devices, and can be imported into programs like G Suite, and other work/ online platforms.
With Creately, you can visualize your family tree in the simplest way possible, with thousands of templates, charts, maps and more. You can also choose how you share the information, or send it to other family members if you desire.
With this family tree tool, you can add pictures, edit, download, or print your family tree all for absolutely no cost.