These are some of the links I find most helpful in my own personal research.
Find a Grave has literally millions of memorials of graves worldwide in its database. All the information is supplied
by volunteers.
Find a Grave
Rootsweb is an affiliate of Ancestry, but without the fees. My personal family tree is hosted there, because I can't
wrap my brain around the idea that you let someone search for a family tree for free and then charge them to look at
the search results.
Rootsweb Global Search Page
The LDS church has a handy website for searches and has the entire 1880 census digitized at its website.
Family Search.org
The LDS church also has free family tree software available for download here.
I use Personal Ancestral File for my own family tree. Do be aware that one of the reasons the LDS Church offers the
free download is because they also encourage users to "give back" by uploading their family tree to the LDS wesbite.
While on the surface, this sounds like a reasonable quid pro quo, what they fail to tell you is that each and
every member of your tree will be duly "sealed" into the Mormon Church. Your choice, but I thought you should know.
How about those brick walls? There are some really nice folks who have a Yahoo member group, and will go out of their way
to help you out.
Brickwall
African American genealogy comes with its own unique challenges. Some folks created a superb wesbite called Afrigeneas.
The site seemed a little difficult to navigate until I found the site map.