Footnote.com Always Free Databases

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com), which has a partnership with the U.S. National Archives, has a number of always-free online databases.

What's Free on Fold3

• Pennsylvania Archives
  The Pennsylvania Archives were originally published as a 10 series of historical records in 135 volumes, covering the initial colonial settlement through the Civil War. The series contains military, tax, marriage, and land records, as well as documents from American history covering the Revolutionary War and the Whiskey Rebellion. Pennsylvania researchers will be glad to have these archives online and searchable.
  
  • Early Pennsylvania settlements, from 1664 to 1780.
  • The Revolutionary War (1775–1789).
  • The Whiskey Rebellion (1794).
  • More Pennsylvania history through 1880.

• US Milestone Documents
  These are the documents that have shaped American history from the 1776 Declaration of Independence to the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution. You can view images of the originals and learn where each document is archived. This collection provides a first-hand look at some of the nation’s high and low points, including the purchase of Alaska, the 1945 surrenders of Germany and Japan, recognition of Israel, censure of Joseph McCarthy, the 19th amendment, and more. Some of the images would be a nice addition to flesh out timelines in your genealogy program or as backgrounds in a heritage scrapbook.

• Project Blue Book
  Nearly 13,000 government UFO reports from within North America and even around the world are documented in these files. These are text descriptions of encounters or sightings during the years 1947 to 1969. Since the names of people involved in the sightings are excluded, there is little genealogical value. I did think it would be rather funny if a flying saucer has been spotted when I was born or another important day in my life, but I didn't find any. Perhaps you may. What is interesting to note is that most of the sightings that I read were spotted by the military, not civilians.

• Story Pages
  These user-contributed story pages are completely searchable. Story pages This is such a wide range of articles that I can't really do justice to describing them. Some of the stories I browsed are biographies of Civil War soldiers complete with uploaded photos, Civil War hangings and executions, family research, how-to's, letters, complete yearbooks. You can use the story pages to share photos and