lansbury

SWMBO decided a few days ago to join ancestry.com.

So far she has discovered she is related to an illegal immigrant, and her great great grandfather served with an Alabama regiment in the Civil War.

She has also found out that a lady I knew as a young child, and always believed was a friend of my mothers mother, was in fact my fathers grandmother. I had never realized I ever knew one of my great grandparents.

robin1234

It is fascinating.. but you can get sucked in. For British records, FindMyPast is a better platform than Ancestry, in my opinion (I have full subscriptions to both.) FindMyPast has the 1911 British Census, which is really fascinating since it was the first census that householders filled in the form themselves and signed it.

Scouse Express

Just before Christmas, my Father-In-Law decided he wanted to find out whereabout in England his Mother's Side of the Family originated, from.

I "Googled" his mother's name, and within minutes I had traced her side of the Family back to 1800, in Bugbrooke, Northamptonshire. Didn't cost a Penny.


Jim.

robin1234

True, there is a lot of free stuff of great value on the web. However, there are a lot of record sets of interest to family history researchers that are only available (a) by going to the archive that holds them, or (b) paying a subscription. The example that really springs to mind, for me, are the British migration records; essentially, passenger manifests of all vessels leaving & arriving at British ports, 1890-1960 (to/from destinations beyond Europe and the Mediterranean.)

The subscription services have you over a barrel for access to these. Ancestry has one direction, leaving UK I think it is, FindMyPast has the other direction, which is why I have a subscription to both.

Dorothy

My dad was really into the geneology thing before he died. He found a ton of information for free through one of the churches - Latter Day Saints I think it might have been. I'll check with my sister when I get home.

My dad traced his family in Ireland back to late 1600s and my mother's family in England to early 1800s before he died. My mom, bless her, told him he got some dates mixed up because there were some dates of birth prior to the parents' marriage dates.

robin1234

Yes, I've gotta agree.. that's just a physical impossibility

Bob

My dad was pretty good at this for his side of the family.

My mother not so much.

I'd be interested, but I just wouldn't know where to start, it doesn't help that my mother is Japanese, so there's the language barrier, the war and lost territory for a lot of the records....that and my fathers family are from all over the place with really common names.

lansbury

The mystery deepens, she has now discovered her mother had a brother no-one ever mentioned.

Unfortunately MIL passed away some years ago so we can't ask, and her eldest brother didn't know of this person either.

Rete

Not so mysterious. I had an older sister that I didn't find out about until I was in my 40's. She died before I was born and Mom and Dad never felt there was a reason to mention it.

Did your wife pay to become a member of ancestry.com or is just using the freebie function. I found very little for either side of my family.

lansbury

She paid for a one month subscription. There seems to be much more available once you pay. She has even found someone from a distant branch of the family has been researching and place photographs online.

lisa67

I use ancestry.com, it's fascinating.
I got really excited the other day when I received am private message from someone who was looking into my husband's side of the family, only to realize it was from my brother in law....he had a chuckle about it too when I replied!
I've come a bit stuck with my Grandfather's family as they moved over to the UK from France

bevinva

I've mentioned this first part before. A few years ago I spent about 6 months doing research on my FIL's family. His father's side was the one I found the most on. I found him cousins. I linked into a wonderful family tree that brought them to America in 1603 and went back to the 1400's in England. I had everything bound in a book for him, it was given to him for Fathers Day.

Recently my husband found out that the person his father thought was his father wasn't! So just about everything I found out about was some other family.

The new bit is this, there is to be a family gathering for his dad's 80th. Mike asks me "why don't you see what you can find out about the other dad?" I think I'll pass.

lisa67

Oh no!!! I'd be so peed off!

My Grandmother once sent me and my Mum to the wrong cemetery to find the family plot. We spent hours searching because it was a real large cemetery in the middle of Birmingham. Then sirens went off while we were sitting under a tree eating our sandwiches as someone had escaped from a nearbly prison and the place was flooded with guards and police dogs with helicopters flying overhead......one of those special mother and daughter bonding moments!!!

lf1

I subscribed to Ancestry last year and started to build my family tree. Do I need to renew the subscription indefinitely just to access the completed family tree?

robin1234

That's a good question, I don't know ... seems to me that if you are not planning on searching for more records, it is a bit of a waste of money to pay a sub just to access your completed data. There are plenty of free or "one time purchase" family tree packages that you could either transfer or maybe even download your family tree into..