Help with researching family history! Please help!?

I have most of the names going back to my great great grandparents. I also have a few historical events through talking with family that actually happend. Now what's next? How do I find official newspaper articles and other documents that I can print or copy? Any online resources would be better because not all of my family lives and came from the state I live now. Where can I find free public records (Companies charge but if it's public I know it should be free.) of my relatives dating back 1900 - back? Any advice and resources would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance.

Public Comments

1. www.familysearch.org that's the mormons site and its free.
2. Look at the top 3 - 5 best answerers in this category. Look at their answers. You'll find that people ask questions like yours every day, and we all paste our stock answer in. There are links to 250,000 free sites among them, counting links to links. The US Gen Web county pages are pretty good for free public documents; they vary, depending on how many volunteers they get to transcribe books and newspapers. The companies that charge for access are charging you for convenience, dear. If you want to fly to West Virginia, put up in a hotel, get dressed, wait until they open at 10 am, you can go through the public records in Monroe County for free. Or, you can surf through them for a fee, from your home, in your underwear, at midnight - with an Ancesty subscription, like I do.
3. Welcome to the world of geneology! It is lots of fun finding out about your family history. I've been researching mine for a few years now. Since your family hasn't lived in the same city or state for several generations, your search is a little more difficult. By talking to family members, you are off to a good start. I reccomend next going to the public library. They usually have copies of newspapers dating back into the 1800's. You can search these for the obitutaries. These are very useful for finding out lots of stuff about family members (where they lived, what job they had, etc.). Also, many public libraries subscribe to heritagequest, or ancestry.com that you can use for free there. Some have census books for many states also. Also, if your town has a historical society, they often have copies of the census. Also, many religious organizations, such as the Church of Latter Day Saints, or the Roman Catholic Church keep very good records of births, deaths, and marriages. It seems like a daunting task at first, but researching your family's history is a rewarding experience.
4. You'll need access to census images and your local main library may have that and some of the other resources you need. I see your problem dealing with other locations when you want copies of articles and documents you can't lay your own hands onto. Someone else has to track down what you want, make copies, mail or email them to you. How are you going to deal with that?
5. The best answer to all of your questions is to trek to the State Archives and Library in whatever state your ancestors lived. They keep all of those records on film and you can pull them for the 10 cents it costs to print them. They also usually keep all the known newspapers ever printed in the state on film and you can pull those reels and read, read, read. If you're too far to spend a day or two there, then the next best thing is to see which of those films the LDS has available. They charge more than the State Libraries, but then again with the cost of gas, it's not such a bad deal. The other route is to partner with other researchers in those areas through http://www.usgenweb.org They will know what's available in their particular states and counties...and are usually willing to help you with the research. Good luck and hope it helps.
6. Ted Pack has a very good point. (well except the underwear thing, but that is just me :-) ) I forget what I pay to use Ancestry.com but it is well worth it. In 4 years, I have been able to make contact in every country my ancesters come from (England, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, France, Norway and many more - my, my, I am starting to feel like a mutt.)
7. Another suggestion. Ancestry.Com, Rootsweb and Genealogy.Com have message boards. You can go under a surname or you can go under a location, like U. S. then a state, then a county. I have had some success in getting obits from using the message boards. Sometimes there are people monitoring the boards that will furnish you one. It is called RAOGK, Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. If you post a message on Rootsweb's it will show up on Ancestry.Com's and vice versa.