Libraries, local governments, genealogical societies, universities, and genealogists have made a wealth of genealogical information available online, and Ancestry Web Records makes it easy to find records from many of these content publishers. We summarize basic information from free web records and provide links to the original sites where you can view the full record, including any associated images.
Guiding principles of Web Records
- Free access to web records; users do not have to subscribe or even register with Ancestry to view these records.
- Proper attribution of web records to content publishers
- Easy access to web records; prominent links in search results and the record page make it easy to access the source website.
The difference between web records and Ancestry records
Web records are published online by entities other than Ancestry. What you see on Ancestry is an index of basic information (such as names, dates, places and family members) that aid in searching. You can often find out much more (including references, publication information, comments, historical context, and even images) by visiting the source website.
In some cases, you may need to perform a search on the external website to find the record you're looking for.
Registration
You don't need to create an account with Ancestry in order to view Web Records. Web Records are free and accessible on Ancestry without any registration or sign in required.
Records included in Web Records
We look for family history records on free-to-access websites that we think will be of interest to you. Our goal is to provide pointers to as many interesting free family history records on other websites as possible in order to provide the best genealogy search experience available.
Only free websites that allow indexing are included in the Web Records index. Sites can be added to or removed from Web Records by owner request.
For content publishers and website owners
We follow web standards for restricting crawling (robots.txt files). If a website has a robots.txt file that prohibits crawling the genealogical records, we don't search those records. If records from your website are included and you'd like them removed, please send your request to websearch@ancestry.com.