O.T. Ancestry dot com??

I've been searching into my wife's ancestry, mostly using the Mormon church website, and also Find A Grave. I keep getting these ads for Ancestry dot com, and I wonder if it's worth the $12 - $24 per month fee. I'm a natural born skinflint, but don't mind shelling out the cash (within reason) for something of value. Are any of you folks interested in this sort of thing, and if you are, what helps do you use?

Thanks
Paul

I bought my folks a year membership for Christmas. They are already addicted. If you don't have a complete tree or are curious about parts it is well worth it.

Depends on how hard you want to research. Daughte is into it bigtime, and finds ancestry.com very useful. Traced some clear back to the timeof the Salem witch trials. Seems one of the "witches" was the sister-in-law of one of the ancestors. I didn"t need to know!

It's a good site, watch- a couple times a year they have free weekends, gives you an opportunity to test drive the site.

It will be interesting to see what is said here. Been contemplating doing the same thing as you. Have a lot of the tree but have some gaps I would like to fill.

Hi, I have been a member for over 5 years and before that I was using it at our local library free. When I first started doing family history research back in 1998 there were several free sites and several states would allow access to their vital statistics data but of course some people started using all the free data for criminal activity and then all the privacy laws were enacted and web sites were shut down. So for any hard core researcher ancestry.com and LDS Church are the choices. There are still several good free sites but the big advantage ancestry has is the posting of family trees. I have found many of my ancestors that have been post on family trees by others and have made contact with these distant relatives. Just like the TV ad!!!

My 2 cents
JimB

They are running a special right now(heard it on the radio today)14 days free.

I used them for a year and found it was the best site for genealogy. What I didn't like is you can easily sign up online and the service is automatically charged to your credit card forever until you call them and talk to a person to have it stopped. I ended up having to take off work to get the service stopped.

As far as research you can find about as much info using google. Be sure to use different variations of the spelling of names. Eventually you will bump into others researching the same thing so be prepared to share info. Often you will find someone that will take everything you have without giving you anything but they are few. Another place you can find information is Genealogy.com http://genforum.genealogy.com/tx/dallam/ You can enter a county or state or surname of where you are researching and its free. They have more services which they charge for but I use this one. You might also be able to find pictures of relatives at a place called "Dead Fred"

I used it for a couple years. It's great for researching things. What you have to be careful of is making assumptions. Just because someone elses family tree names your ancestor doesn't mean it's the same guy. You have to look for the documentation. I'm stuck right now missing the proof I need on just one relative to be able to join The Sons of the American Revolution. I know the line is correct but I need more proof.

Sometimes if you are careful and persistent you can find a lot of neat info. Way, way back when my oldest daughters husband and my family were kin. I traced my wifes fathers side back to the Styvesants (sp) of NYC and the other side of his family were on the 3rd ship after the Mayflower to that colony. On her mothers side and my mothers side parts of both families lived within a mile of each other in France back in the 1600's. Interesting.

I used it myself for a while. I had tons of research already done for me by my great grandfather.

About seventy years ago, he had paid a small fortune to a lawyer in Canada to document our family's history. It goes back into the 1500's

I figured it'd be nice to share that info with other long lost relatives out there. So I joined ancestery.com with that intent. But apparently someobdy got there before me with the same collection of info.

I was a little bummed out that my plan to do a good deed had already been taken care of.

At least it saved me the hassle of entering it all myself - we're talking hundreds of marriages and god knows how many children from each of those marriages.

I did however make MANY contacts with people from my family that I didn't even really know existed.

It's one thing to see random names on paper - quite another to get an email from a distant relative in Canada saying hello.

For that reason alone I highly recommend joining - at least to see if you can connect with any living relatives. You don't need to stay subscribed forever.

And I'll tell you - genealogy in general is an area of the internet that can really make you appreciate the value of the technology.

From the comfort of my office chair, I am looking at a photograph some random photographer recently took of the very baptismal fount in the old run down cathedral where my great-great-great... ...great grandfather was baptized in France in the early 1500's.

Too cool.

I use it and have had good luck with it. Take advantage of the 14 day free trial. You can get a lot done in 14 days and cancel if you don't want continue. They will bug you to suscribe after you cancel, but I can ignore a lot.

found out that I fell out of the family tree and hit every branch on the way down. and that I graduated from the school of grand idiots, with honors..



I use it and have traced family back to 1700 to 1500s

But.. I think that Everyone Else has ancestors that go back much further than mine. {8^)

Thanks for all the tips. I'm leaning towards joining.

it does have some good things,didnt help me a whole lot since it didnt keep records on indians,which was what i was trying to trace. found out a lot about the later folks who came in during the run, but the folks who came to the territory with the indians in the so called trail of tears is largely undocumented.

I have some experience with Ancestry. If you join, specify in no uncertain terms the duration you plan to pay. I assumed my subscritpion would stop and the end of the paid for period, and they kept billing my VISA! ALso ther are different depths of resources on Ancestry. The best version is the Library Version, which you can usually use for free at a historical society or library. What we buy as individuals is often superficial.

My niece in Florida got me into Ancestry.com, last summer. I send in stories of the olden days of my life, and i do not have to pay any monies. I don't know if she does. I'll have to ask her. Rusty Jones