FamilySearch: What's Free and How to Use It
Everything on FamilySearch.org is free — the billions of searchable historical records, the shared worldwide family tree, the digitized record images, the research wiki, all of it. It's run as a nonprofit service by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it requires a free account (no payment method ever requested), and it is, by a wide margin, the most valuable genealogy site that costs nothing.
The catch isn't money. The catches are that some record images are restricted to viewing at partner locations, and that the shared family tree can be edited by anyone — both manageable once you know how the site works. This guide walks through every major FamilySearch tool and the habits that get the most out of them. And when your FamilySearch findings produce a "wait, what's my grandmother's cousin's son to me?" moment, the free relationship calculator on our homepage answers it instantly.
Which record should I search? Tap what you know about an ancestor and see which free FamilySearch tool fits the job.
Tap a button above to get a starting point.
Map how you're related to them →What FamilySearch actually is
FamilySearch is the online face of a record-gathering effort that started in 1894 (as the Genealogical Society of Utah) and has been microfilming and digitizing the world's archives ever since. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints funds it for religious reasons; the public benefit is unconditional — anyone can use everything, no donation solicited, no premium tier hiding the good stuff.
Five tools matter most:
| Tool | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Records search | Billions of indexed births, marriages, deaths, censuses, and more | Free |
| Family Tree | One collaborative tree for all of humanity | Free |
| Images | Browse digitized-but-unindexed record films | Free |
| Research Wiki | How-to encyclopedia for every county and country | Free |
| Catalog | Master list of every record set FamilySearch holds | Free |
Records search: your daily driver
Search → Records is where most research happens. Enter a name, a place, and a rough year; filter by record type or a specific collection (say, the 1940 US census). Three habits separate effective searchers from frustrated ones:
- Use wildcards. An asterisk stands for any letters, a question mark for one: Johns?n, Schuman*. Spelling was a suggestion for most of history.
- Search by relationships. You can search for a child by entering only the parents' names — the trick that finds every sibling in a baptism register at once.
- Fewer fields beat more fields. Over-filled forms exclude the record you want because one detail differs. Start loose, tighten gradually.
Every result links to its collection; always open the image if one exists, because index entries capture a fraction of what's on the page.
When the image is "locked"
A camera icon with a key means the record's owner only licensed viewing at church FamilySearch Centers or affiliate libraries (thousands of public libraries qualify). Walk in, use their wifi or computers, and the image opens — plus centers offer free portal access to premium sites like Ancestry, Findmypast, and MyHeritage. (Related: our guide to using Ancestry for free.)
The shared Family Tree: powerful, communal, editable
FamilySearch hosts a single collaborative tree — not "your tree" but the tree, aiming for one profile per human who ever lived, currently over a billion profiles. This is philosophically different from Ancestry-style private trees, and the tradeoffs are real:
The upside: someone may have already documented your line back centuries, sources attached. Duplicate work across millions of researchers collapses into shared effort.
The downside: anyone can edit anyone. A well-sourced profile can be "corrected" by an enthusiastic stranger merging in the wrong John Miller.
The professional approach: treat the shared tree as a map of claims, not a source. Verify against attached records, keep your own master copy elsewhere (software or even paper), and attach sources when you improve profiles — sourced facts survive edit wars far better than bare assertions. Our step-by-step free family tree guide covers a sane workflow.
Images and the Catalog: the deep end
Only part of FamilySearch's holdings is name-indexed. The rest — millions of digitized microfilms — sits in Images and the Catalog, browsable by place: deeds, probate packets, church registers, tax lists, naturalizations. This is where intermediate researchers break brick walls, reading page by page exactly as microfilm researchers did, minus the reader and the drive to Salt Lake City.
And that's changing fast: FamilySearch Labs' full-text search uses AI handwriting recognition to make unindexed documents searchable — you can find your ancestor named as a witness inside a neighbor's 1830 deed, something no human index ever captured. It's free, experimental, and already astonishingly useful for US land and probate records.
The Research Wiki: ask it before you search
The Wiki (over 100,000 articles) answers the question beginners don't know to ask: what records exist for this place and time? Look up any US county and you get civil registration start dates, courthouse fire history, surviving church registers, and links. Look up any country for its record customs. Two minutes here saves hours of searching for records that never existed.
Memories, apps, and giving back
Three smaller features round out the toolbox. Memories lets you attach photos, audio recordings, and written stories to tree profiles — free permanent storage for the shoebox of family photos, and a genuinely good place to preserve a grandparent's recorded interview. The Family Tree and Memories mobile apps are better than most companion apps: the "relatives around me" party trick aside, the tree app is a solid way to capture information mid-conversation at a family gathering.
And indexing is how all those free searches came to exist: volunteers transcribe names from record images through the site's web tool. Sessions take fifteen minutes, no commitment, and there's a certain justice in indexing a 1900s city's marriage records while someone across the world indexes your ancestors' village registers. If FamilySearch has saved you a subscription, an occasional indexing batch is the honest tip jar.
A sane FamilySearch workflow
- Search Records for your ancestor; attach or save what you verify.
- Check the Family Tree for existing work; audit its sources skeptically.
- Read the Wiki for the county or country to learn what else survives.
- Browse Images/Catalog (and Labs full-text search) for the unindexed material.
- Visit a center or affiliate library for anything locked.
As the finds accumulate, so do the relationship puzzles — the census "niece" who's really a first cousin once removed, the DNA match who's a half second cousin. The free CousinChart calculator converts any ancestor path into the correct term, which keeps both your notes and the shared tree accurate.
FAQ
Is FamilySearch really 100% free?
Yes. Records, images, the tree, the wiki — everything is free with a free account. It's funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a nonprofit service. Some record images are license-restricted to FamilySearch Centers and affiliate libraries, but access there is free too.
Do I have to be a church member to use it?
No. Anyone can register and use every feature. Account creation asks for basic details only — never payment information — and using the site brings no religious obligations or follow-up.
What's the difference between FamilySearch and Ancestry?
FamilySearch is free, nonprofit, and built around one shared world tree; Ancestry is subscription-based with private individual trees and some record sets FamilySearch lacks (and vice versa). Serious researchers use both — FamilySearch as the free backbone, paid sites for what's exclusive. See our Ancestry for free guide before paying anything.
Can other people change my family tree on FamilySearch?
On the shared Family Tree, yes — every profile is communally editable, like Wikipedia. Attach sources to make good data durable, watch profiles you care about (the site notifies you of changes), and keep a master copy of your research outside the shared tree.
Why can't I view some record images at home?
Record custodians (archives, churches, governments) sometimes license FamilySearch to show images only at FamilySearch Centers or affiliate public libraries. The index entry is usually visible at home; the image unlocks on-site. Thousands of libraries qualify — check the affiliate list for one near you.
What is FamilySearch indexing?
The volunteer program that built those free indexes — people transcribe names from record images so others can search them. Anyone can volunteer from home; it's how the 1940 census got indexed in months, and it's a genuinely useful way to give back.
Free is the starting line, not the compromise
FamilySearch isn't the budget option in genealogy — it's the foundation everyone builds on, including professionals with every subscription. Open a free account, learn the wildcards, respect-but-verify the shared tree, and save the Images browser for your brick walls. Then, every time the records cough up an ambiguous aunt, in-law, or once-removed cousin, let the free CousinChart relationship calculator put the right name on the relationship.
