Find Ancestors

For the last week or so I have been offering look ups on the 1841 Berkshire census name index and the 1851 London census name index which I subscribed to through a website - I'm not mentioning the website as I dont want to give them any free advertising. They have decided I have been doing too many look ups and that they cant possibly all be for myself so have suspended my account. Ok I admit it was in their terms and conditions that look ups werent allowed, but I had done all the look ups that I needed to do for myself and I wasnt going to let the remaining credits go to waste (I only needed to do about 6 look ups for myself). I have sent a very angry email back to the company but I just needed to throw my toys out my pram for abit longer. Karen

ouch becareful Karen that rattle just hit my head. These sites seems to have you over a barrell, take your money and as you only need a couple of lookups they do well out of it. Keep throwing those toys I'm dodging now

Hi Karen That makes you the 3rd person this week! Lou

Nudging this back up, the website who have banned me have a spy on this board. I dont care about naming and shaming the person, theyre name is Tree hugger, they may not take part in conversations on this board but trust me they are watching. No doubt this thread will now be removed, but trust me I've gone through alot worse in the last few weeks in my personal life that having a thread removed off here.

Nice one Karen, Thanks for the warning will stay away, Keep smiling......xxx

Same thing happened to me in July,so had to stop doing lookups. Also Derbyshire Dancer.who I,m sure will add to your thread if shes watching

I think I know which site you are referring to! They do monitor which names you are regularly looking up if you use the index's and get very suspicious if you look for loads of different names. Re the whole spy thing, this has been put forward by others in the past, also suspended and is a logical explanation. Genes do not give out your details apparently, so the only way they can catch you that I can see is if you use the same email addy for sending images etc as you use to log into the said site, or use your real name on the boards. The moral of what I am saying here is use different email addy for each of these two sites, without using your real name in them, don't give out your real name, and don't do index lookups for many people! Sorry you got caught... Sarah

Thanks everyone for your feedback/comments etc :-) They emailed me a screen image of my thread offering look ups so I was guilty before charged. I dont regret doing the look ups. I had the credits to use up and there were people that needed my help, I would do it again with out a seconds thought. I think they need to look at a very successful genealogy search/census/bmd website (aka Ancestry) and take a lesson from their book, Ancestry charge alot more than this other site, but Ancestry dont mind people doing look ups for other people, go figure! Karen

Seems outrageous - if you've purchased the credits then you should be allowed to use them as you wish. Still, never mind - any day now the whole of 1851 will be on Ancestry so no-one will need to subscribe to their over-priced index then! And once BritishOrigins have finished the 1841 (which is also promised by Ancestry) then ALL available Eng & Wales census will be indexed and accessible online elsewhere. Hopefully then we'll start to see some healthy competition between the various companies subscription/credit rates!

Welcome to the club. Been there, done that ... got the T Shirt ... and so have a few others. I ended up apologizing, and pointed out that I had NOT read all the terms and agreements ..... and agreed to no longer do lookups on behalfs of anyone else. Luckily for me now, I was doing 1861 Lancashire lookups ... before 1861 came on Ancestry ... so I never even look at that subscription any more. Thing with mine was, I EARNT mine by doing transcribing for THAT company. I DID use my Real name at the time ... which is why I changed to Derbyshire Dancer ;-) Elaine :-) Have just read the entire thread .... Hi Isobel !!!!!!!!

I dont understand that, if you bought say 100 units and you used just 100 units, how the hell can they decide you are doing too many? They are getting the money for 100 units after all, whether its you doing it for yourself or someone else.

Yes Heather, But if EVERY person who needed a look up purchased units from the said compnay ... that company would make more money ... and thats the bottom line. Person A buys 100 units and uses 34 ... has some spare. Person B buys 100 units uses 7 and has spare Person C buys 100 units and uses 59 has some spare. Thats 3 lots of subscription fee's for 100 units used. Company make healthy profit. Persons A B & C have lots of spare units that they probably won't use ... but hey, the company don't care ! Elaine :-)

Hi Karen Like you I bought some credits from the site and offered look ups for the extras that I didn't use. (although...I wasn't caught and told off!!) However, the family that I particularly wanted to find wasn't listed. Went to the FRC yesturday, did a bit of trauling through the roads near the the road they were living in 1841 and found them.....in London. So.....the records aren't particuarly accurate either. Hmmmmm do I now ask for a refund!!!??? Sarah

Derbyshire - yes but if Person A, Person B and Person C get p***ed off with forever buying credits on genealogy site ''X'' - the majority of which they can't use due to the rather limited coverage of indexes on the said site, then why don't they simply get a subscription to genealogy site ''A'' where they can happily do as many searches and image downloads as they want, no questions asked? That way they can all give the finger to site ''X'', who will then be making £0.00. If site ''X'' wants to be competitive, then why don't they sell units that are valid for each census year and county, rather than having to purchase more and more units every time you want a look at a different decade or different area? Like I said, they will very soon become obsolete unless they come up with a more competitive pricing structure. Their only plus at the moment is that they offer data which no-one else is currently providing online - but that is about to change! Richard

Please tell us who it is, so that we dont use them!!!

I think you, who think Ancestry dont mind using their site for look ups are way off the mark, they fully mind it is against there terms and conditions, nobody offers look ups on there message boards, it is just that Ancestry do not moniter this site, but if when they have finally loaded all census years and less people subscripe, they may well start baring people with multipe unrelated names, could Happen, Dont kid your self Ancestry are that genourous.

No company will ever be happy that people are ofering look-ups, be it here, on Ebay or anywhere else. They all state that in their terms and conditions. It's the same way you cannot buy a CD then treat all your friends to a free copy: you buy it for your use. Those sites will almost certainly keep an eye on here - what's a £10 annual subscription if it means more people subscribe to their site? They have business overheads and mortgages :) Ancestry might not chase people yet but that's because they are the dominant business and won't suffer as much if ten or twenty people get a freebie rather than take out a subscription. That didn't stop them pulling the plug on the remote access to Galegroup, so they do take it seriously. Ways to avoid being caught out: Use a nickname on these boards. If they are suspicious because you're looking up a variety of names, they will be looking for your name here. Don't state which resource you use, because then it makes it harder for them to prove it's their company suffering. Don't offer look-ups, instead respond to individual requests (ideally by PM).

Thanks everyone for your comments. The website is the genealogist. Karen

Sue - I see now that they have in fact introduced a ''new all-inclusive subscription''. That is only recent I think as last time I looked at the site it wasn't there? Their closest sub comparison to Ancestry would be their ''Personal Premium'' (credit-free) at £68.95 per year. Well you get a lot more on Ancestry for £50 a year - or even less when they have a special deal going. I'm sure that we're going to see quite a reduction in sub rates across all sites, as the competition grows - hope so, anyway!

I've bought 3x£5 subs to census indexes from this site. 1841 London...which claims to be complete, yet I have returns for people in London in 1841 (located previously using addies from certs etc) and they aren't on the index. 1841 Yorkshire/1841 Lancashire....I have found upwards of 30 of my families on these indexes but I can't get any look ups done for the household details cos the references don't match the discs. And yes, the look ups are being done on their discs! I'm incredibly disappointed, it might only be £15 but it hasn't provided the service I was expecting