Ancestry.co.uk

[237SJ]

Is it worth joining? I haven`t even looked at prices yet or whether there are lots of different levels of membership but I thought I might treat myself as a christmas present and join up. Is that the best one to join? I`m guessing that it is because it has been around longer than Findmypast.

[HansUrbancka]

You may get a worthwhile answer if you were to repost in the Genealogy topic which is a sub-section of History. :-

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/History/Genealogy/

Hans.

[Clanad]

The product, while worthwhile, is marketed by the LDS Church, here in the U.S. They have the world's most extensive collection of genealogy records.

Problem is, it tends to feature U.S. records over European. That's not to say such records aren't available, but the basis for the entire collection, in my opinion, rests on the 10 year census taken here in the U.S. as mandated by our U.S. Constitution and goes back to 1790, with several partial State records as well.

Here, the watershed for census records was the year 1850 since that's when extensive additional data were included… items like the father's State of birth, actual names of all children and a more relative actual place of residence.

There are, of course many other records but, again, the base is the Census'.

As an aside, unfortunately, time wise, one of the most important census' would have been the 1890 census, since the U.S. had experienced a decades long internal migration following the Civil War (1865) and would have held treasure troves. However, the census was collated and then filed in the National Archives in Washington D.C., only to burn to the ground within the year. Only partiaal records of some States survived… pity...

[Ann]

Its brilliant 237, once you've found some family members you will be hooked! I've now done family histories for most of our friends. A really enjoyable hobby. About £39 a quarter if I remember correctly so only £3 weekly if you work it out like that.

[237SJ]

Thanks for the replies. I was talking about my grandfather this afternoon and decided to look at the online census buy you have to pay. It`s tantalising when you are so close but have to fork out £5 for a few credits so I thought I might just join up. I do have some copies of family trees somewhere from people in Oz/US etc who have turned up on my parents' doorstep when they traced themselves back to our village but it would be nice to look for myself and find out more about my Mum`s side as well.

[Barmaid]

237, as a long term genealogist (been doing this lark for about 25 years), I love ancestry. It's irritating at times, but no more so than any other site. I tend to use ancestry AND FMP in conjunction with each other. If I had to choose one though, I'd go with ancestry.

[twix123]

Don't forget there is also FreeBMD:

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

who have transcribed most of the Birth, Marriage and Death records from 1837 to 1983 (at present), plus they are currently transcribing the Census records from 1841 to 1891, although only part way through likewise they are currently transcribing Parish records.

[yelenots]

I agree with 'Ann' - I'm hooked too! In fact, I posted a question in the history section earlier about buying the Ancestry Family Maker! Only been on Ancestry for about 12+ months and pay each month about £17 for worldwide. I also use a few other site too to get info - love it :-)

[gem_mother]

I joined Ancestry earlier this year through Quidco and there was a 25% cashback offer on which i think is still available. I joined Quidco to do it and it took a while for cashback to come through but was quite happy with the process. Happy with Ancestry as well. My daughter joined Findmypast when they had a 50% off offer on the site itself. We found my grandad's merchant seaman certificate with a picture of him when he was young - this was worth the annual fee on its own! These records weren't available on Ancestry.