Genealogy Chat

Andrew, Sorry only just seen your reply. Have just been on to Ancestry - entered Rose Young in marriage databases and the only quarter that is MISSING is 1925 4th quarter. The 1st quarter for 1923 doesn´t show up intially but Fuzzy Feeling has explained to you how you can access it.

it seems from what you are all saying is dont burn your boats with 1837 it has it uses once you are in the know, but to a newbie its a gas guzzler, its cost me loadsa £££££££££ on 1837 searching for people, much better getting it for free on Freebmd. thanks for all your comments on this one. lots of things to think about, but for £ 1.40 a day on Ancestry thats not even the price of a pint. Cheers Lee

Ancestry as an organisation is really the coca cola or macdonalds of the genealogy world.They want to conquer every nation and buy everyone out they will never be able to get their hands on local parish stuff. If you organise your research so that you concentrate on the period 1837-1911- get the sub for one year and get all the census info covering that period and print them off,or save the images.In short go sideways on your tree for one year.After that then go to pre 1837 stuff and your county records.

I think in all the lookups i have done ( literally thousands by now) i have only had three quarters that are missing after going via the 'backdoor' ie entering the year and the first letter of the surname. Yes some are difficult to read and the search will miss the odd quarter here and there but if it was so easy to get everything where is the fun and the feeling of achievement? The census images can be quite fun to use and you can even play around and find out what streets are in each district. When you view the census image there is a line of text in blue starting 'you are here.......census 1871(or whichever),etc' The district will be shown and by clicking on the blue text you can then get to a page where each district for the area is detailed and download/view/print the images.These will list the district,street names and adjoining parish to the one you have selected. Sometimes a street is a boundary and one side is in one district and the other side in another.Personally i have printed and then laminated them and they make a conversation piece for many a visitor. Glen

found this a really interesting topic - fairly new have been given info back to 1801 on 1 g/parent from a relly, and have got back to 1826 with another, have now got the bug and going for the other set of g/parents, am trying to talk Mum into joining Ancestry but she likes going to the records office - can someone explain about this family tree programme you can buy - someone said a copy bought from Play, gives a 3 month free trail, trouble is I've already logged on to try to get the 14 day free trial but was concered about giving credit card details - will this cause a problem??? comments would be appreciated. Gill

Hi Gillian. The program you refer to is Family Tree Maker (FTM) The 90 day trial will require credit card details,but i already subbed to ancestry before i bought the programme so it didn't apply. There is another thread 'Family tree maker cor this is handy' i will give it a nudge Glen

Lee not £1.40 a DAY its a WEEK! Kate, I believe ancestry said it would free to non subscribers just during the initial period - expecting it to stop that any time now. Gilian, Ancestry is a really top class company, you need not fear giving your credit card details to them.

Definately a yes from me! Joining Genes and Ancestry are the best 2 things I have done for a while--I've added loads to my tree, met new rellies and made friends along the way! Go for it

ok folks red face here ahhhhem Heather put me right, its £ 1.40 a week.

I agree so much with Alter. An index is useful, of course it is. You don't have to pay a sub to use Ancestry's indexes for 1841 - 1891 censuses, the indexes from freebmd or currently the beta images of the GRO indexes (which in any case will be superceded in a few years.) Whether Ancestry is worth a year's subscription, and a second year and a third year is a different matter entirely. I did the free trial and can honestly say that 1. Beginners should get themselves back to 1901 before they join. 2. It is a useful one-stop shop for the sixty period back to 1841, particularly if used in conjunction with the other available sites. 3. You would be very lucky indeed to find anything useful for UK research pre 1837 that wasn't already freely available in other forms. Ancestry had only to negociate with National Archives for the censuses. Copyright for parish registers will involve all sorts of different people. And registers are only part of what you need for research pre 1837. Having used the free trial, am I subscribing for the year? No.

Thanks to Glen - think I will order the FTM from Play have had a look although you can save a couple of £ buying elsewhere, only Play.com offers the 90 days free trial, elsewhere only the 14 days - have zapped off email to Ancestry to query whether as I've registered, but it looks like as I've NOT put in credit card details, not actually signed up so might be lucky I will let you know when I hear back from them might help someone else later on. Will get my IT literate son to check out our system ok to handle the programme, also may need some help from him so had better wait before I order! Gill

nudged for Karen Sarah :-)

Just thought I would let you know FTM arrived on Saturday, as I had promised my Mum I would do it with her resisted temptation to open until Sunday about 5.00 - then registered for 3 month free trial with ancestry - but couldn't stop there thought I would just look at a couple of names we know (cos we have birth+marriage certs) but as you can guess I couldn';t stop! Have got it open at work today and keep going on to look at it ! Have rung Mum up to insist she comes over on Tuesday instead of Wednesday 'cos cant wait to check out the next names on our written list to look up! Glad I went for it - thanks for the advice, Gill

Gillian, Quick question. The free trial with Ancestry, is it unlimited and can you look at and save all the the census images from 1841 to 1901?

Joan, I,ve just tried looking up a friend and didn,t get to scotland, sowould be interested in a reply to your quiere. Rod

note to Steve - when you load the FTM onto your PC it asks you to registered - need to do to get free trial - so then signed up, it gives you the date the free trial ends, so have noted in diary week before incase I dont want to renew, have seen on other threads that they just take the money and renew you so best make sure you want to - so far I have looked at census sheets, same as you will see on microfiche in records office - have emailed them, not tried printing yet but am sure you can - at the mo. am more interested in getting info. off Ancestry rather than use the actual Family Tree maker but it looks great! Have found 3 peops. and only be on it today! So far really impressed. I think house will look like a tip and the ironing pile will be falling over very soon! Gill

Gillian, Thanks for that I was getting confused as to how the free trial works. I now understand you register with your credit card details to start the free trial but you have to cancel this before the end of the 90 days otherwise a full year is then taken from you credit card account. One other thing, once registered with the 90 days free trial can you use any PC (ie work and home) or can you only use the PC you first registered with? Regards Steve

Hi Steve - yep! You can log in on your own or another computer, remember to hit log out when you leave though - I had a look on Ancestry the other week, just as a guest but had used my main home email address, and didn't fill in the credit card details, but when I tried to register yesterday it came up with something like 'this email address known to Family.com' - so I registered using a work email address rather than risk losing the 3 month trial, all that meant was when I finished couldn't log on until I got the email (cos it was at work!) giving me a user name and start password, you can log on from any pc, you get opportunity to change the user name and password, - I'm at work at the mo. it is the same as for Genes R. you log onto website, put in your own user name and password - as I said earlier have had Ancestry open all day and every spare couple of mins and opening up file and have another look for names! Gill

Gillian, Thats great, thanks again for the info. Regards Steve

Steve, just one thing, you dont get a 90 days free sub unless you buy the FT program.