Tracking Down Your Family Tree

[Targa Me]

Have any of you tried Ancestry.com?
Good experience?
Bad experience?

Let me know.

[widebody911]

I know someone who has a subscription. I gave her what little details I had about my birth parents (names, city they lived in, dad was in the Army) and in about 10 minutes she had birth marriage, divorce and death records for them. I was amazed by how much info is out there and how easy it was to drill down and get it.

[Sarc]

Originally Posted by Targa Me

Have any of you tried Ancestry.com?
Good experience?
Bad experience?

Let me know.

We have a subscription to it. Tracked my maternal ancestors to 1600s Virginia. My father's side was slightly more complicated given their relatively new arrival to the states in the 60s, but among the lot of information, I was able to find an image and manifest of the ship my grandmother took with her family to South America from Ireland in the early 20's.

[nota]

mormans are free and where Ancestry.com get their info from

why pay for the same info ?

or try this free site

https://www.familysearch.org/

[sammyg2]

Never done it before but just checked https://www.familysearch.org/ and in 5 minutes found out my great-great grandparents on my father's side were born in Tennessee and Missouri around the time of the civil war.
Last name of Blasingame.

[azasadny]

My family tree is a shrub...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by azasadny

My family tree is a shrub...

That's better than a stick .......


Wouldn't it be a kick two complete enemies on PARF traced their ancestory and found they are related?

[Jim Bremner]

My Mom is big into it. 1600's!Here's one from a little time ago. Dad's side.

[imcarthur]

Just a little caution about any site BUT familysearch.org. FS is run by the Mormon church. They have been researching & documenting genealogical records for years (wiki says 1969) as IGI International Genealogical Index . It started with micro-fiche. They scoured the census data (which started most places in the mid-1850s), added church & parish records from Europe & micro-fiched it all. Pre-internet you could request photocopies of a micro-fiche at any Temple in the world. The fiche are all being transcribed by volunteers (I have done some) & database'd online as familysearch.org. They are meticulous with the accuracy of the data.

The other sites use this data & their subscribers make the connections - right or wrong. So your conclusions might be based on links that aren't really there - just some other source's wishful thinking or inaccurate linking.

And it is very easy for inaccuracy to get in. Here is an IGI transcription of parish data from just a very limited area of Scotland.



Yes, I have a few ancestors in there. It's hard work to find the real data but believe what you will.

Ian

[slodave]

I found my biological family ten years ago on an obscure and no longer around genealogical site. It also helped that that family name is the only one in the U.S.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

That's better than a stick .......


Wouldn't it be a kick two complete enemies on PARF traced their ancestory and found they are related?

Or a weed...

[Mothy]

Ancestry.com advertises a lot in Australia on the back of a TV program called "Who Do You Think You Are?"

One of their biggest selling points, unique to Australia, is promoting their product to see if your family originally arrived in Australia as a result of being a convict.

Where else in the world would you use a Criminal history as a selling point for a product.

Then again - for 200 years we have been asking people arriving if they have a criminal history. It's still asked on the immigration cards on arival at airports. It used to be a condition of entry.

Tim

[Bill Douglas]

Hey Tim. You know how we are almost neigbours.

My great great..... etc grandfather was the origional early settler at Cragie Station which is next to Bombala station at the bottom of NSW.

[azasadny]

Originally Posted by Mothy

Ancestry.com advertises a lot in Australia on the back of a TV program called "Who Do You Think You Are?"

One of their biggest selling points, unique to Australia, is promoting their product to see if your family originally arrived in Australia as a result of being a convict.

Where else in the world would you use a Criminal history as a selling point for a product.

Then again - for 200 years we have been asking people arriving if they have a criminal history. It's still asked on the immigration cards on arival at airports. It used to be a condition of entry.

Tim

Some strange folks here in the US really, really, really want to be related to Jesse Jams or other sociopaths and murderers for some weird reason...

[imcarthur]

It's just like every Scot wants to go straight back to the Bruce or barring that, Robbie Burns or William Wallace.

Ian

[biosurfer1]

Originally Posted by imcarthur

They are meticulous with the accuracy of the data.

Ian

I think they need to work a bit harder on the "meticulous" part. The second entry I found about my great grandfather had his named spelled wrong. I found it because I noticed the names of my great aunts and uncles were there too. I'd blame it on the hand writing of the census but it was hand printed and clear as day. Not sure where the screw up happened.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

Not sure where the screw up happened.

It would have been the transcriber. And he wasn't checked accurately by the 2nd one . . . with the millions of data points, operator error creeps in. But the handwriting is abysmal on many. And sometimes the census taker was in error or was given the wrong info at the door. Or the priest or minister. For Scottish & Irish records, the Mc & Mac is often interchanged & the O' is added or dropped. I am stumped on my great-great-great-great grandfather. The perfect match is a Mac . . .

Ian