The best way to start your roots research is through one of the many Web sites devoted to genealogy. A popular free site is Cyndi's List (www.cyndislist.com), which has organized links to a wide variety of sites. At EllisIsland.org, also free of charge, you can search immigration records, then see a copy of your relatives' ship manifest and a picture of the boat they traveled on.

Subscription sites lure you in with free, bare-bones, Web-based family-tree software as well as limited amounts of free searchable data. To access more data, including the family trees already created by others, you have to subscribe. The MyFamily.com group of sites includes FamilyHistory.com, which hosts genealogy message boards; RootsWeb.com, an online genealogy community; and Ancestry.com ($79.95 to $189.95 a year), which provides an extraordinary amount of searchable data. Genealogy.com ($49.99 to $149.99 a year) provides similar data and includes a free copy of Family Tree Maker software at any subscription level. MyTrees.com ($100 a year) lets you barter your family information for free research time: The more information you upload, the more free time you earn to search the database of other people's genealogy information. MyTrees.com also lets you download a free copy of the standard edition of Legacy Family Tree.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.