Try
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ This is the free information from ancestry.com The message boards can help.
Also try these two organizations
http://usgenweb.org/
http://www.worldgenweb.org/
If you know who you are looking for and where they lived sometimes you can put that info in a Google search and get some info. It is how I found DH's GGF and his family connections in Illinois.