Family Historian User Group

Hi all,

I currently subscribe to ancestry.co.uk

But was wondering how people found thegenealogist.co.uk please?

Is it worth subscribing to both?

Many thanks
Tony

ID:2597

I find it helpful to subscribe to both together with britishorigins.co.uk and findmypast.com in order to verify the information i find on ancestry.  

I did find someone on britishorigins who was completely mistranscribed on ancestry so it is a help I find and worth having another source to check with.

I was very disappointed with thegenealogist and let it lapse after a year, however I have had my Ancestry subscription for several years.

Irene

Thanks for the replies

I use ancestry and the lds site the most, but also make use of findmypast and fhss etc

thegenealogist looks like it _might_ have some additional databases that might be useful to me but to get full access means an annual subscription. I guess i'll probably have to bite the bullet with a years subscription. Also the ancestry transcriptions for my surname are appalling, so hopefully they've made a better job

Thanks
Tony

I use Ancestry, FindMyPast and GenesReunited plus any and all free sites that I can find like FindaGrave, the IGI, FreeBMD, FreeReg. I also use Google a lot.

I can also suggest http://www.one-name.org for the cases where you have a surname being researched as the researcher will likely have a lot of information.

Genes is especially useful for the black hole period between 1901 and 1911 when there is little information to link up families (last census and before mother's maiden name recorded on birth indices) - so long as someone else in that branch has been doing some genealogy. It's allowed me to link up some loose branches and twigs.

I forgot about genes, yes i use genes too. Mainly for hot matches/contacts. Have come into contact with loads of distant (and some not so distant) relations

Will take a look at one-name.org thanks

Apart from ancestry, I have found familyhistoryonline to be pretty good and a ten pounds investment goes a long way.

I also joined the society of genealogists as I work in London so am able to get in - this gives me the advantages of lots of parish registers rather than just one county's worth in my local records office. It also lets me have hours access to all records on origins that come from the society every quarter.

If you are a SOG member, you can also access everything on ancestry.com (inc the US census records), findmypast, on the PCs in the SOG library without charge - you just have to pay for any printouts. I think that the documentsonline (PCC wills etc) from the national archives is also available on trial until the end of the year.

I personally subscribe to ancestry.co.uk so that I can download the UK census images, and also findmypast as the searching/transcriptions are usually better here than those on ancestry.

Jeremy

I use Ancestry (no wonder it was bought out by a private equity co as it seems the market leader) and findmypast.  Gave up on thegenealogist.  Use the FreeBMD etc sites and GenesRU though have a love hate relationship with it.  and whilst it is not exactly a research site I have listed my families on Lostcousins.

Do we have the free sites listed somewhere  in the Wiki? or as a sticky? and if not is it possible to do?  I have never heard of the Findagrave site for example

There is a list of sites in the Links section, but it might be worth doing a more detailed list in the Wiki, please feel free to add one.

Many subscription sites have free newsletters, and I find that it is very useful to subscribe to those. That way you can see what new data is being added to the site and can tell whether the site has information from the areas or families you are working on.

To date I have not found much on the site Find-a-Grave. It was started by a fellow who was interested in the graves of famous people and then branched out (if you'll pardon the expression) to include information about more ordinary people. If someone happens to post about a cemetery you need, you can sometimes get a 'lucky dip' but the coverage is not very extensive.

The nice folks at Curious Fox are also running a beta site for the US, so if you have queries, give that a try. You can join for free, and if you want more features there is a very modest membership charge.

By the way, if I can be of use finding things here in the US, please let me know. One of the things I find most frustrating is that I find 'free' websites which boast that they have all sorts of links to find some kind of record or another (say vital records, or marriage records) and then when you try the links, 75% of them take me right back to Ancestry, when I was trying to find alternatives to the records Ancestry provides!

One thing you might want to keep an eye on is World Vital Records. It has an ugly look-and-feel and the coverage is very quirky, but they have an interesting system whereby every collection or database (or 'wonderbase' as they like to call them) is free for the first 10 days. Subscribe to the free newsletter and then you get alerts about what is being added, or just cruise by once a week.

One of the people behind WVR was a founder of Ancestry, for whatever that's worth.

Jan

Does seem Ancestry is pretty much THE site to use

Have decided, based on replies above, to sit tight for now

Have enough mysterys to work on for now anyway!

Thanks
Tony

I was disillusioned with the genealogist because I paid a year's subscription and then found it did not include everything. I joined to use the ships crews and they were not in the inclusive package. I did complain and they said they would review the way it was advertised, but I am not inclined to give them another chance. Check by email to make sure the records you want to use are in the 'inclusive' subscription before you pay anything

Irene

I think the genealogist lost my vote as it used cookies to only allow you to work on one PC - as somebody who has a laptop for travelling research, and also looks up records at work (lunchtime of course[grin]) I couldn't work on only one machine.

RalfofAmber said:
I think the genealogist lost my vote as it used cookies to only allow you to work on one PC - as somebody who has a laptop for travelling research, and also looks up records at work (lunchtime of course) I couldn't work on only one machine.

Likewise - every time I rearranged my laptop I had to contact them to reinstate my account. Plus they proudly trot out all the databases included in the subscription, but 95% are irrelevant - check whether you really need them first.

I subscribe to Ancestry, and use findmypast.com on a payg basis for when Ancestry throws one of its indexing wobblies
Brian