If you want to research your family history, Familysearch.org is an excellent tool to help you out.

Don't go there thinking they will have your tree right there on screen - won't happen! Do some bakground research first - get your tree from family members as far back as possible. To use familysearch.org you really need to be able to go back 100 years before it will be of any use to you. Once there click on CUSTOM SEARCH and use the International Genealogical Index. By typing in just the surname, you can get it to list all the entries it has for that name. Then work your way through the entries - might take a while!

Don't make the common mistake of thinking that this site will have all the answers AND be 100% correct. The data was input by humans from data written or typed by humans. Anything you get from there should be double checked and verified if poss from other sources, like parish records etc.

Don't assume that anything that LOOKS correct or like it fits into your tree, is the info you are looking for - check the dates, places and names and only add the info if you are sure. I've seen people use the site, come up with stuff that looks right and assume that people are "theirs", only to find later that they weren't.

Familysearch.org is a wonderful took to help your research. This site also offers free downloads of Personal Ancestral File, a wonderfully easy program for compiling all your family history data. You can use it to compare, file, import, export, turn into a webpage tree and convert into a file that you can email to people. It will also read GEDCOM files that other people have sent you.