Genealogy Chat

Hi All, I subscribe to Ancestry too and have found difficulty with the Civil Registration, there are a number of my great grandparents I can't find deaths for. I know they all died at least after 1895 when their children were born. However with regards to the cost. I have found genealogy is infectious and a number of my friends have jumped on the bandwagon along with me so we share the subscription fee.

I've never really been impressed with Ancestry. I only ever subscribed because, for me, it was the easiest and cheapest way of finding the info I needed on the British 1891 census. It's still very American-orientated, makes too many inflated promises and is vastly over-priced. Oh yeas, they have loads of data, but most of it is USA based and refers to very specialised lists. It is, after all, a commercial and profit-making concern. Unless you specifically want 1891 census information, I really couldn't advise subscribing. I see so many newbies on here forking out money to sites like Ancestry or on discs when they should be sticking to the basics we've all had to do.......there are loads of newbie guides around so I won't repeat them (but if you DO need help email me). I'm afraid a lot of this is a long hard slog (getting your parents' marriage certificate, finding their birth, finding their parents' marriage certificate etc etc) and it makes me very cross when sites like Ancestry offer to wave a magic wand and trace your ancestry back to William the Conqueror or whatever. Sorry folks, but it ain't gonna happen! Sue

Robin; I hope you sent an email to Ancestry getting right up their ribs about it? I would be complaining long and loud to them. After all, if you have paid for something that they are advertising and it isn't available, then to me, that is false advertising! sonja

Until quite recently, Ancestry had the Cambridge Alumni database online. They're still headlining this on their home page, but now it looks like all they've got online is a name/college/year index, and if you want the full records you've got to buy a cd-rom, £24.95. I think I'd be a bit cheesed off if I'd done a free name search, got a hit, paid £30 + vat sub for a quarter to "access this record", then got almost no further info and been directed to the shopping area. I'd also be very cheesed off if I'd paid my sub before the change, found my vicar, then gone back later to print off the details and found they'd gone away, without warning. These people are ruthless. Taking stuff off the site is a backward step anyway. Looks like they've given up any attempt at making the continuous subscription idea work. And they're still advertising completion of the 1891 census in "late summer". (This was better with paragraphs in it. While I'm in a bad mood, are GC ever going to fix this?)