Recommendation for family history online

If you have an idea of where they came into the country, start checking the local clerks of court.

I don't know much with specifics besides the normal ancestry.com route... but if you happen to know if your extended family was involved heavily in a certain part of the country, historically - There are tons of local history blogs covering the country. I keep up with a SW Pennsylvania blog that tends to bring up my ancestors every 3 or 4 months and it's anecdotal stuff that doesn't necessarily show up other places.

If you have a name to start with, go to wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com and search from there. That's were I started years ago before ancestry took over roots web. There is a good chance a distant relative has done a lot of research already and you may be able to add to or validate some of their family tree information.

The DNA testing site are great AncestryDNA.com 23&Me & FamilyTreeDNA.com
My wife and I both did DNA tests for $99. I am now waiting for results from for a Y DNA test from Family Tree
My wife was adopted and in 5 months of research found her biological mom, an uncle and a half sister

You piggy back on all the work other people have done and can transfer your data from one site to another for a price

My distant cousin and I have been working for close to a year filling out our ancestry on Ancestry.com. The more work you do, the better these sites become. We have traced all the way back to Europe but for one great grandfather so far. All my ancestors so far have come from France, Switzerland, Hungary and Germany. It is a fun hobby.

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There is a good chance a distant relative has done a lot of research already and you may be able to add to or validate some of their family tree information.

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I was able to do this for my father's side of the family. Got it all the way back to 1500's in France.

On my mother's side, my great grandfather accomplished something that made him somewhat famous so it was pretty easy to find info on him and build on that info all the way back to 1600's Belgium.

There are a lot of things archived on the Web. For instance, I found a copy of my grandfather's World War 1 draft registration card and some newspaper articles about my great grandfather.

The Mormons. They have databases of endless family records. You may have to pay a little bit for their research, but they'll find your info for you.

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was able to do this for my father's side of the family. Got it all the way back to 1500's in France

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How did you do this? Most records dating back to the 1500's were burned in France long ago. I'm not calling you a liar, I'd just like to find out my family history as well.

When researching my family history, public libraries were very helpful. Ship passenger logs, baptism records and etc.

I have done a lot of ancestry research. Now that my wife and I have a child, I have been doing research on her side. One of her great grandmothers was a Marcotte. I had never heard of them but her grandfather is very proud of them and had only heard fables/hearsay of them. Turns out they are a very old family in North America. Nearly 350 years old and connected to numerous historical figures.

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How did you do this? Most records dating back to the 1500's were burned in France long ago. I'm not calling you a liar, I'd just like to find out my family history as well. 

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I found a common ancestor with someone who had already done all the work.

In my experience, being that my family was from France via Canada, and were among the first batch of Acadians to arrive in Louisiana from Canada, a good bit was written about them on the websites that focused on Acadian genealogy.