This free family search engine searches for ancestors using the power of Google Search. This free ancestry search engine uses Google Search enhancements so that you’re much more likely to find mentions of ancestors that are otherwise buried in thousands of Google search results.

NEW! Now you can Filter Search Results to include or exclude search results from People Search sites and Social Media sites.

Try searching for living people using PeopleSearch.

NEW!  Let this FREE tool do the location work for you as you search on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org

U.S. county boundaries have changed over 17,600 times since America was settled in colonial times. Don’t sabotage your search for ancestors by not knowing the correct county for the historical years you are researching.

While searching on Ancestry and FamilySearch, the free Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker extension for Google Chrome automatically checks that the county existed in the year you are searching, warns of boundary changes, and links to historical county lines on Google Maps for the place and years you are searching!


Install for free today and never let an ancestor fall of the map again!

QUICK TIPS FOR USING THIS TOOL:

1. Type in as many search criteria as you want. Use of alternate names, a second person, place, or year are all optional. You can also optionally filter on marriages, births, and deaths.
   TIP: Use the tab key to save time moving between input boxes
2. Click the “Run Full Google Search” button to run your search (or just press the Enter key)
   Search results appear in a new tab; close that new tab to go back and refine your search
3. NEW! Choose any of the Filter Search Results options to EXCLUDE or to INCLUDE ONLY search results from major people search sites and/or social media sites. Read more details below.
4. NEW! Click the “Set Google Alert” button (near the bottom of the tool) to automatically receive updates when Google Search finds a new page matching your query
5. Subscribe in the top header to receive notification of tool updates and usage tips

NEW!  How to Filter Search Results from People Search sites and Social Media sites

• EXCLUDE search results from people search sites:
  If your search results are inundated by tons of results from people search sites, choosing this option will remove as many of those sites from your search as possible. Note that Google Search has a 32 word limit, so depending on how many search terms you have entered, as many as possible of the people search sites will be removed in the order shown in the next bullet (based roughly on traffic ranking according to Alexa).
• INCLUDE ONLY search results from people search sites:
  To find a person’s listings in all of the major people search sites, choose this option. If you’re concerned about your privacy, this is a great way to find out which people search sites have your information. Typically, it’s best to start by typing just First Name, Last Name and Place (e.g. city or state). You can also type a 4-digit year or an age into the Year box, and choose “Exact”. Because of Google Search’s 32 word limit, your search will often be executed as two searches and two tabs will open containing the search results (for the same reason, two tabs will open when setting a Google Alert with this filter option).
  For your convenience, the following links will take you to each people search engine’s opt-out page where you can request to have your information removed:
  

  whitepages.com, beenverified.com, zoominfo.com, mylife.com, spokeo.com, truepeoplesearch.com, instantcheckmate.com, clustrmaps.com, truthfinder.com, fastpeoplesearch.com, peoplefinders.com, rocketreach.co, apollo.io, intelius.com, owler.com, usphonebook.com, peekyou.com, peoplelooker.com, radaris.com, smartbackgroundchecks.com, pipl.com, familytreenow.com, searchpeoplefree.com, checkpeople.com, thatsthem.com, 411.com, advancedbackgroundchecks.com, ussearch.com, anywho.com, zabasearch.com, peoplesearchnow.com, xlek.com, publicrecords.directory, peoplebyname.com, checkthem.com, usa-people-search.com, veripages.com, peoplesmart.com, findpeoplesearch.com, dobsearch.com, people-background-check.com, fullnamedirectory.com, phoneowner.com, publicrecords360.com, backgroundcheck.run, publicrecords.com

• EXCLUDE search results from social media sites:
  If your search results are inundated by tons of results from social media sites, choosing this option will remove as many of those sites from your search as possible. Note that Google Search has a 32 word limit, so depending on how many search terms you have entered, as many as possible of the social media sites will be removed in the following order (based roughly on traffic ranking according to Alexa):
  

  youtube.com, facebook.com, baidu.com, qq.com, wikipedia.org, amazon.com, reddit.com, instagram.com, twitter.com, stackoverflow.com, linkedin.com, github.com, whatsapp.com, tumblr.com, medium.com, stackexchange.com, pinterest.com, messenger.com, quora.com, tripadvisor.com, skype.com, yelp.com, tiktok.com, nextdoor.com, wechat.com, snapchat.com, qzone.com

• INCLUDE ONLY search results from social media sites:
  To find a person’s listings in all of the major social media sites’ public pages, choose this option. The priority order searched is the same as shown in the prior bullet. Note that Facebook and some other social media sites do not allow Google Search to index most of their pages, so you must manually search within Facebook to get the full set of search results.
• Be sure to subscribe to email updates in the top header to receive notification of tool updates and more usage tips

Also, check out the Historical U.S. Counties on Google Maps tool on this website to put your search in the correct historical geographic context. It uses Google Maps to display US County Boundaries from ANY HISTORICAL YEAR. You can then click any county on the map to see the specific history of the boundary changes, and type in different years to see the boundary changes over time.