Genealogy Chat

Does anyone know why after not accessing Ancestry for a few weeks, I am suddenly locked out of searching the parish records and Pallots marriage index, which I used to be able to search before. Have they changed their access and do I now have to pay more for what I used to get before?

I have emailed them but have not had reply,

Angie

Angie

They have changed the lay out.....& it does my head in when doing a look up on the other census as you have to go the long way about it

They have also changed the subscription packages.

Essentials is the cheapest one and doesn't include Pallots or parish records.

You have to have the Premium to view those.

Have you renewed recently?

Christine

You know, Julie, it's driving me mad, too - even in order to find the "switch back to old search experience" link, you have to do a search!

(And I wish Ancestry would note - I do not want a "search experience", I just want to be able to search the census etc in a quick and simple way. There was somebody I was hunting for on the 1841 census - which is the worst one of the lot to search because of no specific birth places - and her name - "Susannah" had been badly mistranscribed. I only came across the family by chance - the surname was written on the original as "Winder", not "Winrow", but when I tried searching for a Susan* in Lancashire born c.1806, it offered every Susan born c.1806 everywhere in Britain!)

(Deleted post below was a duplicate of this, by the way.)

hi Christine

No I have not renewed, its not due yet, can they just change packages halfway through just like that? Its a rip off!!!!!!!!!!!

Angie

Adding as I would also like to know if they can do that.

Hi Angela,

I don't think they will be allowed to change your access until your renewal date.

My subscription ran out last week, still debating whether to renew or not, because the prices have increased,and I still had access to Parish registers and Pallots until then.

If you click on My account it should tell you which package you have.

These are the prices now.


Annual Memberships Annual Price
Annual Essentials Membership £83.40
Annual Premium Membership £107.40
Annual Worldwide Membership £155.40


I would either email them or phone on the free phone number if I were you and see what they say.

Good Luck
Christine

Hi Christine

Thanks I'll have to phone them, they are n't answering my Emails,

Angie

I suggest calling them as I emailed them, 13 days later (last night) got a reply saying we can help you with that call us!! I didn't want to call them, but hey maybe if the call centres based in the UK they will understand what 'contacting trading standards' means, if they don't honour their advertising. Got FTM as and xmas gift with '6 months premium membership' but I put the code in and my accounts showing only 'Essentials membership', not impressed.

While we are on about searching Ancestry, can anyone tell me (a) how I search just a single census, e.g. 1841 instead of the lot (there used to be a list of censuses to choose from), and (b) which type of BMD I want to search, i.e. complete, partial or the other one.

Margaret

Hi Margaret,

if you look at the top right hand side of your homepage you will see a button to customise your homepage. If you click that it brings up the list of censuses and bmds etc and you can choose which to include on your homepage. I put all the censuses and bmds on mine so I can search as before. It will save searching through all the censuses when you want a specific one. I hope this helps.

Caz

If I can offer a tip for searching censuses.

I have no idea what a home page at Ancestry is, and don't want to know. ;)

I open a browser window and go to the main UK census search page:

http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/census/uk/default.aspx

Under the search form, there is a list of individual censuses.

I right click on

1841 England Census

and select "open link on new tab". Then I right click on 1851, open a new tab, 1861, open a new tab, etc.

Then in one browser window I have a tab for each census, plus one for searching the whole bunch at once. (Actually, I first open two more whole-census database tabs.)

If I decide to do something in Scotland specifically, I can go back to the main census search tab and open a tab for a particular Scottish census.

May sound complicated to some, actually it's hugely easy and makes life hugely simple.


The same thing works for the BMD databases.

http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/vital/freebmd/bmd.aspx

Right-click on each of the databases in sequence, e.g. starting with

Partial FreeBMD Indexes & Images 1837-1983
births
marriages
deaths

And then you have a tab open in a single window for searching each database (FreeBMD, complete images set, 1984-2005 databases).

Two Ancestry windows: one window for censuses, one for BMDs.


In another window, I keep 4 or 5 FreeBMD tabs open and a couple of IGI tabs ...

I renewed at Xmas and emailed ancestry about the christening and marriage records now being locked was told i need to unsubscribe and then rejoin paying for the next one, dam cheeky if you ask me!!