Free Family Research
An offering the institution is preparing. Free, conducted under editorial discipline, open to any family.
A family bringing forward an ancestor's name should not need a paid subscription to begin. Free Family Research is the public-good layer of the archive — a service the institution is preparing in which the discipline behind the editorial record is offered, without charge, to any family that asks.
You will enter the name of an ancestor and what you know about them. Our research will return a draft profile of that person — drawn from federal census records, military and pension files, newspaper archives, vital records, cemetery registers, and the records of the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedman's Savings Bank, among other sources. Every claim will be marked plainly: corroborated by two or more sources, single-source, or unfindable.
The free tier is exactly that. The discipline behind every memorial in The Great Archive — the two-source rule, the documentary composition, the honest evidentiary marking — is what families will receive. Where a family wishes to enter the permanent archive with the verified record, the existing Commission Service and Methodology remain available.
— What the institution is preparing —
This is an active build, conducted under the same operating principles that govern the rest of the archive.
- AI may draft, AI does not publish. Research is AI-assisted; the editorial team reviews any record before it enters the permanent archive. Operating Principle 6.
- No surveillance. Your inputs are not sold, not used to train any AI system, and not shared with third-party data brokers. Operating Principle 5.
- Open about what is unfindable. Where a fact cannot be corroborated, the draft will say so. The discipline of the Archive is to state what we know, not what we believe.
- Free remains free. Free Family Research is the public-good layer of the institution. There is no paywall on the research draft itself.
Until then, the existing tiers remain. A name brought forward today does not have to wait — Submit a Memorial is open now, as is the Commission Service for families wanting the institution's editorial team to research and write the memorial on their behalf.