Ancestry.com

[LisaR]

Has anyone used this site? Good? Bad? Can you get all the information in a few months? Thanks!

 

[veraletta]

I use it all the time and love it.
it's great for reading census.
I dont know how much of your genealogy for you family that you have done but I really love it. It saves me time I dont have to go out to read census.
I can read a lot of the books for the town my family lived in, but it doesnt mean that they will have a lot of the books you need for your family.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

I actually found my long lost 1st cousin on that site. They have a message board area for every last name and I went there and found that my cousin's wife had posted a message looking for us!

My brother traced the entire family tree for us and was able to get some info from this site but most of it he had to do the old fashioned way by visiting courthouses and digging up info that wasn't online.

 

[Seewhatimesdone]

I've tried to look my family up and I entered everything correctly but still nothing

 

[Feralpeg]

I am currently using it. I've been able to trace several legs of my family back to the 1500s. Sometimes, you will come to a stopping place. At that point, I've done just general lookups of family names on the Internet. I've found information that has helped get me started again. Sometimes, it is a matter of looking through hints that don't look good at first, but really contain useful information. I've also been contacted by three different people with whom I have family in common. It's fun. Good luck!

 

[LisaR]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the information. My 13 y/o is the one that is interested in doing this. She has already done a great deal of research by talking to family members and searching online. I really do not want to pay over $300 for a one year membership because reality is, she could very easily lose interest. I don't mind paying for a few months, though.

 

[agnes!]

Ancestry.Com is a great site & resource. I think it's worth it to get one of their memberships.

If you're looking up family, a couple of ideas...

*Get creative with your spelling. People haven't always spelled your family's last name the same way as *you* spell in today. For instance, Smith could be Smythe, Fehr could be Fuhr, etc. Use phonetic spelling.
*Google is your friend. Google places your family used to live, grandparent's names, etc.
*Check out the family name forums at genforum.com [http://genforum.genealogy.com/surnames/].

I've found a 5th cousin & a small group of us relatives are researching a common ancestor. He's our 'brick-wall' ancestor, so far we've been unable to go any further.
I've found out that I am distantly related to the Washington family by marriage.
I found some ancestors were Baptists in a mixed-race congregation in Virginia when almost everyone in the colony was Episcopalian. I can hardly imagine the strength of will that decision took.

It's pretty cool stuff, to find folks and think about what it was luke to live 'way back then'.

agnes!

 

[agnes!]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the information. My 13 y/o is the one that is interested in doing this. She has already done a great deal of research by talking to family members and searching online. I really do not want to pay over $300 for a one year membership because reality is, she could very easily lose interest. I don't mind paying for a few months, though.

$300?!? Don't get the premium(world?) level - just get the one that allows you to search most databases.

I will tell you I am not fond of Footnote.com. Their search engine is very unwieldy and I don't get useful results. Geneaologybank is another one that i don't think I'll renew. Not sure about NewspaperArchive.Com yet.

Happy hunting !
agnes!

 

[LisaR]

$300?!? Don't get the premium(world?) level - just get the one that allows you to search most databases.

I will tell you I am not fond of Footnote.com. Their search engine is very unwieldy and I don't get useful results. Geneaologybank is another one that i don't think I'll renew. Not sure about NewspaperArchive.Com yet.

Happy hunting !
agnes!

My daughter is interested in our relatives that were born in Italy so wouldn't we need to subscribe to the world/premium one?

 

[Abbie]

I've tried to look my family up and I entered everything correctly but still nothing

Same here. I can't even get further back than my mother because it doesn't recognize her maiden name and she was born in NY! Her parents were from Italy and it doesn't begin to find them....I must be doing something wrong. I know I'm spelling the names correctly because I have a copy of the manifest from when my grandfather entered NY harbor.

 

[hopemax]

My daughter is interested in our relatives that were born in Italy so wouldn't we need to subscribe to the world/premium one?

The databases are constantly growing but they are not complete. There are some Italian vital records, but not for the entire country. There are records for Calabria, Palermo, Piemonte, and Lombardia regions. If your family isn't from one of those areas, a world membership would not be helpful. There are Italian records, but you have to get them the old fashioned way, microfilm.

 

[LisaR]

The databases are constantly growing but they are not complete. There are some Italian vital records, but not for the entire country. There are records for Calabria, Palermo, Piemonte, and Lombardia regions. If your family isn't from one of those areas, a world membership would not be helpful. There are Italian records, but you have to get them the old fashioned way, microfilm.

Thanks so much for letting me know that. Our family is not from those areas.

 

[hopemax]

Same here. I can't even get further back than my mother because it doesn't recognize her maiden name and she was born in NY! Her parents were from Italy and it doesn't begin to find them....I must be doing something wrong. I know I'm spelling the names correctly because I have a copy of the manifest from when my grandfather entered NY harbor.

Remember that the records have been transcribed, so just because you have the correct spelling doesn't mean that they have the correct spelling. Not only does someone have to have read the record correctly in the digital transcription, but the person who wrote the original record had to have spelled it correctly. I was looking for the name Ghiuro, and I finally found them under the name Omero. When you look at the record, like the census sheet it wasn't Ghiuro either.

 

[muffyn]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the information. My 13 y/o is the one that is interested in doing this. She has already done a great deal of research by talking to family members and searching online. I really do not want to pay over $300 for a one year membership because reality is, she could very easily lose interest. I don't mind paying for a few months, though.

look for some of the specials you can get with purchasing the program 'family tree maker' on ebay,, you can get the program for about $16. & it includes 3 months of ancestry.com use.

really worth it, since you should be using a genealogy program to put your results in.

( a year ago there were offering a free year on ancestry, maybe there are still boxes for sale with that offer on it.)

oh PLEASE keep her interest in it,, I wish I had done this 4o years ago, now all my grandparents are gone & with them all the family history that no one kept track of!

 

[agnes!]

look for some of the specials you can get with purchasing the program 'family tree maker' on ebay,, you can get the program for about $16. & it includes 3 months of ancestry.com use.

really worth it, since you should be using a genealogy program to put your results in.

( a year ago there were offering a free year on ancestry, maybe there are still boxes for sale with that offer on it.)

oh PLEASE keep her interest in it,, I wish I had done this 4o years ago, now all my grandparents are gone & with them all the family history that no one kept track of!

That is so true.

Good to hear that the OP's DD has interviewed family-members already. She could get a goldmine of information from family-legends and stories. OP - did she take some video of folks telling her their story? You could see if there are any local classes (historical society, geneaolgical club, local library, LDS/Mormon research rooms, etc.) that she could take so she would know what's available.

agnes!

 

[hoosll]

I started out with rootsweb and then moved on to ancestry. Both are great sites.

I like the roots magic software better than family tree maker.

Try the Ellis Island site.

 

[veraletta]

You can just pay monthly; I can get it for one month or for all 12 months.
I only pay $25 a month for as long as I want to use it.
I would look to see getting your daughter family tree maker program and see if they have 6 months free, as most the time they will give a trial for so many months. Look for the program at walmart or Sams Club.