What paid subscription do you prefer

Question

I didn’t see my first post of this so I’ll ask again.

My gift subscription to Ancestry will be up soon and I’m trying to figure out if I should stay there or try something else.

I like to be able to read the records and documents. Ancestry has a lot hints that are like pop ups with a few words on them. No documentation to read or look at. Drives me nuts cause I can’t read other than that. Being able to put them on here and Ancestry is a plus. Lately I’ve been using Ancestry as a practice run before I put it over here.

Most of my ancestors are from out east to Midwest, they came from England, Ireland etc. I would like to not have to pay extra to look over the pond. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Totally depends on what you want — which specific states and time periods, which parts of Great Britain and which time periods, etc. But since you mention British records, check out FindMyPast.

My main advice is to learn to find the vast amount of free information. Once you have a feel for all the stuff you lookup on Ancestry that is actually available elsewhere for free, you’ll be better able to target your subscriptions towards sources you need that aren’t free.

Comments

I have British, Scottland Ireland so basically Europe. I dreading the Netherlands simply because of the language and Barbados  

In the states mainly Massachusetts, Vermont and New York.

I’m trying to get as many documentation that I can at Ancestry before the subscription runs out sometime next month.

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Netherlands is actually quite easy. Many records are online and free. Vital records tend to follow a formula and knowing the keywords will get you through it for the most part.

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Yes Doug, good and free Dutch sites offering elementary English support are OpenArchives and WieWasWie (WhoWasWho). Familysearch also has lots of resources: massive amounts of films of Dutch records, some indexed, some supplied by partner OpenArchives.

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Jan, I've used those two sites quite a bit with some supplement from FamilySearch.  I was able to do an aunt's family reasonably far back. Also those of two brothers-in-law. Didn't need to learn much Dutch.

Answer 2

I started with a free trial on Ancestry then shifted to findmypast. I went with findmypast because they are easy to copy/cite. After 18 months I found I couldn’t access all records on just one site so finally was given a present of a years sub to ancestry.

I have also found there are many free sites, not just familysearch.. like FreeReg, FreeBMD and FreeCen for English records. Etc.

Comments

Ive never even heard of them other than Family Search. Thanks for the list !

Answer 3

As Barry said, it really depends on what you want/need. From what you said in your question, you are mainly looking at hints on your tree to find things. That may or may not get you much. The images of the docs are more readily found through the Search function. Not all docs will have images but most do. FamilySearch search can find many of the same things. There are times Ancestry will find the record but not have an image but FamilySearch will.

The biggest problem is that no one site covers everywhere equally. Both Ancestry and FindMyPast charge extra for adding outside the USA. MyHeritage divides differently with all records in either the data only plan or in the complete plans. They also have a tree only plan. Again, it depends on what you need to be able to do.

Comments

Hints on Ancestry are seen when you don't have an Active Subscription.  The name of the source may be enough for you to find the item on a free or cheaper site, also.

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Hints are quite useful and I agree that they can help find things on the free sites.

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To add to what Ellen said below, since we do New York, New England and Canadian (Québec and the Maritimes) research, we subscribe to a number of pay sites:

• Ancestry.com - the search is really good
• AmericanAncestrors.com - NEHGS
• NYGBS.org - New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. Access to the published journal provides a lot of well sourced genealogies and biographies focused on New York. Also it comes with a FindMyPast US/Canada subscription.
• MyHeritage.com - Not quite as much as Ancestry but does have international records.

Ancestry and MyHeritage also have some good DNA matching.

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That’s what I like about Ancestry is the dna match. The only problem is when you run into people who’ve made their trees private. There are a quite a few of those.

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In some ways, private trees are better than some of the truly bad trees. Unfortunately those seem to get copied more than the good trees so I've been seeing the same wrong ones show up in Thrulines a lot. One is the desperation some people have to link to the Mayflower. one of my ancestors frequently gets a wife linked to him who was married to a different person with the same name from a different part of New York. Mine ancestor was a cobbler. The wife in question married a doctor. So you have to be very careful with trees. Other times they can be quite a help. MyHeritage also has good DNA matching but Ancestry has far more people. You will find that most of the people who do DNA tests aren't really interested in genealogy. They wanted their ethnicity profile.

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Doug said:

"One is the desperation some people have to link to the Mayflower"

Tell me about it. I had trouble researching a smattering of Martins in my tree because so many people tried to shoehorn Christopher Martin into their ancestry. None of them were related to Chris, but he was always there ...

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That's why it is so 'silly' that we expect sources on wikitree instead of just believing what people put in their trees. Lol

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Right now I would settle for a site that wasn’t constantly messing up.

I’ve been trying to go through the hint on my main lines, I go to look at one and there are same sex marriages in there, from the 1500’s and certainly not from someone in the 1800’s Not that I care who they marry but back then I believe they had different views on it

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On ancestry, hints are generated from other people's family trees which doesn't mean they match anything, but they add them without checking anything.  People continue the same things here and on family search and other places, unfortunately without verifying without sources. That is what wikitree members are trying to change.

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That’s why I’m moving it over here. I’ll look tomorrow and everything will be either back where it was or messed up more. It happens every time they put in a new beta that they’ve been trying out.

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I've never had Ancestry mess up my own tree. Accepting hints will certainly do that if you don't review them carefully. Hints are really only hints and you do have to look at the sources before accepting any.

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Right now it’s showing me that everything is a match even though nothing matches. I’ve been watching what I except as hints, not adding unless it a match etc. it’s been acting really bad today for some reason.

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In order to help, I would need more info. What do you mean by "match?" I frequently have hints on most people in my tree but nothing changes in the tree unless I accept the hint. The green leaf doesn't go away unless the hints are explicitly accepted or rejected. Ignored works as well.

Are people or their data changing?

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It is perfectly possible to ignore hints on Ancestry . I do, I've just checked and have an astounding  7, 640 hints .My  Ancestry tree  contains only what I have personally researched, moving back one generation at a time in the traditional way. Hints are sometimes useful to add newly available sources but many are just b******t .

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The hints that they’ve been giving me (last night) would give a totally different name and in the shaded part it would say match even though it was a totally different person. It’s very frustrating. This normally happens to me when they are doing something on the website. After I posted I started to get the “sorry there may be an interruption in service “ thing at the top. That’s when I went off and started doing stuff here lol

Answer 4

My thoughts on some paysites where I have subscription access:

• Ancestry.com is the most expensive. It has the best search function (but other sites continue to improve) -- for me, search is its single most valuable feature. Also, it has some records not available on other websites, including some published books that are still in copyright, some New Netherland and New York church records, some city directories, and school yearbooks. I currently pay for U.S. access only; on occasions when I have had World access, I found some good content for England (text of a will, for example) that I have not seen elsewhere, but I have not found much benefit for me from content for the continent of Europe.
• The NEHGS AmericanAncestors.org website is hands-down the best value in genealogical research sites. It is invaluable for researching Massachusetts and Vermont, and it has many excellent resources for New York and other U.S. places and topics, as well as some material for other parts of the world. There are many resources you will not find online elsewhere; the cost is far less than an Ancestry subscription; and NEHGS is a nonprofit organization, not a profit-making business.
• I have access to FindMyPast (US and UK) via my membership in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, because FindMyPast hosts the NYGBS journal and some other resources that have value for New York, New Netherland, and sometimes other places. I think NYGBS might be changing this arrangement, so I cannot say how long the FindMyPast access will last. However, currently my NYGBS membership costs less than FindMyPast would. FindMyPast is a good resource for the UK.

My recommendation to you is to: 

1. Get acquainted with the free resources on FamilySearch (it gets better all the time)
2. Register as a guest on AmericanAncestors.org to see what is there -- and get access to the databases that are free to guest users. Then, if you are truly interested in researching Massachusetts and Vermont, enroll as a member. (Membership will cost far less than an Ancestry subscription.)

Comments

I'll second this. It is invaluable, especially with New England ancestors. The other benefit is the NEHGS Register which is useful in showing what genealogists can accomplish.

Answer 5

I was a subscriber to Ancestry for years before finding out about WikiTree and then FamilySearch. I still use Ancestry to access the many trees I created, however, now I mainly use Ancestry source data gathered from years of research to help me find FamilySearch sources that is not accessible with their search engine.

Don't like MyHeritage. Do not get enough for the money. I'd rather spend my time on WikiTree.

I agree with most of what Ellen Smith said in her answer except I have not used FindMyPast or New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. Not sure if I want another paid subscription or if I would get enough benefits for the expense.

Answer 6

Most U.S. libraries get a library edition of Ancestry and if your library has a website, you might be able to use its Ancestry from your home. That's what I use - it's free.

I log into my library's webpage with my library card number

Comments

my library's website

https://www.wtcpl.org/online-research-resources/#1550078941941-5142107d-7058

see Ancestry ? under Biography Genealogy History

also Fold3 limited access for military

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I had a library card years ago, like when my kids were little. With everything shut down here they only allow curb side pick up. I had checked one time to see if they allowed you to register on line and they didn’t. Maybe now they might. .

Eta, I was able to register and they gave me a temporary I’d code but the local site is just for holding books etc.

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where do you live

maybe I can find you a corresponding library that will accept your card

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I’m in Wisconsin, I was able to log onto Ancestry through a library here, can’t find my tree, but can look up pretty much everything else.

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Alice, I am pretty sure that if you discontinue your Ancestry subscription, your tree their will go away. Save your content before you leave Ancestry!

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Ellen, actually I believe your tree stays on Ancestry unless you choose to delete it yourself. From their help page - "Unless you delete them, any trees you’ve created in your account will remain on the site whether or not you have a membership." See https://support.ancestry.co.uk/s/article/Accounts-after-Cancellation.

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No it will stay there. I had a lapse of years and it stayed so that’s one good thing.

I’ve also recently synced it with Family Tree maker which I really don’t like. I just can’t get the hang of how it works. Plus it runs really slow. I don’t think it works well with larger trees.

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Question, if I were to have my ancestry tree open in one window and the library version open I can just copy and paste from on to the other right?

Are there any other Ancestry type sites that you can get through the library’s on line that are free?

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Thanks for clarifying the Ancestry Tree situation. I have never had a tree there, and I had no clue about the policy.

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"Are there any other Ancestry type sites that you can get through the library’s on line that are free?"

Have a library card? Get some free Ancestry.com records at home via HeritageQuest

Have a library card? Get free access to MyHeritage Library Edition at home

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Thanks, I looked further into a neighboring town and they have both free! Who knew, well, probably everyone else but me lol. My local library has it as well but not online.

Answer 7

If I could afford another subscription anywhere it would be back on World Vital Records.  I had a subscrp with them for 2 years, and one for 6 months with Ancestry.  I found soooo many more worth while records, docs, books, etc thru my World Vital Records.  and I like the fact that it was No Hassle searching, no advertisements, no blowing up my email with adds, offers, etc.. I would spend hours just hunting records, downloading what I needed.

Comments

I was not previously aware of World Vital Records, so I looked them up. After reading a favorable online review, I found their domain name. When I got to https://www.worldvitalrecords.com I was transported to another website where I learned that they are now part of myheritage.com.