There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites. I have links to some huge ones, below, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first.
If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it.
If you are in the USA,
AND most of your ancestors were in the USA,
AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access,
AND you are white
Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly. Many young people stop reading here and pick another hobby.
No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late.
You won't find living people on genealogy sites. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth.
Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources. Cross-check and verify.
So much for the warnings. Here is the main link.
http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html
That page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites, for a dozen huge free sites. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look".
You will need the tips. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, or they mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library. I watched the mistakes beginners made. The query forms on the sites are NOT intuitive.|||My answer is lengthy and I apologize for that but I want to warn you of the advantages and the pitfalls of genealogy on the internet. So I have cut and am pasting an answer.
Here is a link to various websites, some free, some not.
http://www.progenealogists.com/top50gene鈥?/a>
Websites that only have family trees are not worth a tinker's curse unless you are willing to verify the information with documents/records. They are subscriber submitted, very seldom documented and if they are they are poorly documented. You frequently will see the different info on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the absolute same info on the same people from different subscribers but you would be very foolish if you thought for one moment that that means it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying. The information can be useful as clues only as to where to get the documentation.
Right before Christmas of 2008, I found out I was dead. So was my sister and my brother-in-law. We died in New Jersey. Since the only time my sister and I were ever in New Jersey is when our family drove through it coming from New York in 1957. It was the same year Hurricane Audrey hit in our part of the world. Hey! we had been dead for 51 years. It says so on the internet. It has to be right if it is on the internet!
I found out that family on both sides married and died in New Jersey. Since my ancestry is mostly southern American colonial with some exceptions and those exceptions came in through southern ports, I was surprised.
This tree would have been accepted by any genealogy website. You can make up an entirely fictitious family tree and it will be accepted. You disagree with something someone has on one of your family members, the websites will tell you that it is between you and the other subscriber.
This subscriber had almost 150,000 names in her family tree. There are too many people with trees on the internet that think it is more important to get as many names as possible rather than have a good verifiable family tree. They copy info from other family trees, perhaps on their inlaws. Then they find inlaws of their inlaws and go crazy. One website, genealogy.com use to encourage people to merge other people's family trees into theirs. That is downright sloppy genealogy.
Now the best for the total amount of records online isn't free but your public library might have a subscription to it. That is Ancestry.Com. Still be careful about the information in their family tree, particularly their One World Tree program.
If you have been into Ancestry.Com, you might have an option at the top to "switch back to old search." I find it much better, then to the right when you are under search you can pick categories to search under.
CyndisList.com is a website with links to many other websites, some free and some not. Many people involved in genealogy find it helpful.
Not all records are online but the ones you will find will save you time and money traveling to courthouses, libraries etc.
However your first free source is your own family. Get information from them. Tape your senior members if they will let you. People who do this state they go back and listen to the tape again after doing research and hear things they didn't hear the first time around. I am not saying they won't be confused or wrong on some things.
Find out if anybody in your family has any old family bibles. Ask to see and make copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. Depending on the religious faith, baptismal, first communion, confirmation and marriage certificates from their church can be helpful.
A good free source is a Family History Center at a Latter Day Saints(Mormon) Church. They have records on people all over the world, not just Mormons. In Salt Lake City, they have the world's largest genealogical collection. Their FHCs can order microfilm for you to view at a nominal fee.
They won't try to convert you, at least they haven't done so to me or anyone else that I know. Just call the nearest Mormon Church or visit their free website, FamilySearch.org, to get their hours for the general public.
Rootsweb and FamilySearch.org are 2 free sites but remember verify information in family trees with documents/records. If you don't you don't know whether it is accurate or not.
Also be wary of any website, merchant in a mall or at airport selling so called "family crest." A crest is part of a coat of arms. Coats of arms do not belong to surnames.The family history that comes with them will not be the family history of everyone with the same surname.|||www.familysearch.org is a great free site.
www.familytreemagazine.com also has some great info on researching and recommends sites.
Good luck!|||I have found the ' family search ' is the best free online genealogy site.
Google family search . It is run by the mormon church and they have extensive records|||Try here
http://labs.familysearch.org
http://www.familysearch.org
http://www.rootsweb.com|||Try the LDS FAmily site.
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