PeopleLegacy vs. FamilySearch vs. Ancestry: free vs. paid

One of these three sites is free in the way people mean when they say free. One is a subscription platform that dominates American genealogical research. The third is a report assembler that behaves like neither. They get compared constantly, mostly because the same relatives led everyone to all three. The comparison is worth doing properly.

FamilySearch: the free index

FamilySearch runs on digitized records — census, vital, military, probate — indexed by volunteers and made searchable without a paywall. The Social Security Death Index lives here. The 1950 census lives here. Most of what an amateur researcher needs for a single death or a household search is here, free, with the caveat that the interface shows its age and the matching is aggressive.

The deal is not a charity. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operates the organization, and records tied to temple work are handled under its rules; some collections reserved for temple purposes never appear online. For ordinary family research the limitation rarely bites, but the site’s priorities are its own, and free is still an accurate description.

Ancestry: the paid archive

Ancestry holds the deepest commercial index of American records — census, vital, military, newspapers — and sells access by subscription. Its search lets you see that a record exists, then asks for payment to open it. The same records, where FamilySearch holds them, open free.

The honest way to use Ancestry: let FamilySearch do the indexing for you, then use Ancestry’s search results as a map of what exists, and buy a subscription only when the free layer has demonstrably run dry. There is also the library route — many public libraries and FamilySearch affiliate centers license Ancestry Library Edition, which looks like a weekend-long free pass.

PeopleLegacy: the assembled report

PeopleLegacy is not a genealogy platform and does not try to be. It assembles records from sources it licenses — census indexes, obituary collections, public-record compilations — into a single chronological profile of a person. You search free, you see what exists, you pay for the full report.

The report format is its reason to exist. When you need the shape of a person’s life in one page — born, married, children, residences, death — the assembly saves an afternoon of clicking across indexes. For a document you can cite, however, the platform is the wrong tool: it presents conclusions assembled from records, not the records themselves.

What each site gives you free

The realistic division of labor

For a single factual question — a death date, a household in 1940, a census line — FamilySearch answers it free. For an American record set that FamilySearch lacks, Ancestry’s search results tell you the document exists, and the library route may open it without a card charge. For a fast composite picture of a person’s life, PeopleLegacy’s report is the efficient buy.

People who pay for all three are paying for the same underlying records twice over. The indexes overlap. The fees do not. Decide by document, not by brand: free index first, subscription for what is genuinely missing, and a report only when you want the synthesis.

Where to go next

• What a PeopleLegacy report contains: the review.
• The big two, focused on a death: MyHeritage vs. Ancestry for tracing a deceased relative.
• All services in one table: the comparison page.
• More guides in this area: Reviews & Comparisons.

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