Genealogy Chat

hi other than genes which site one pays for would you reckomend as being next best for tracing ancestores ,and reasons why cheers dave

Ancestry by a mile ,has BMDS,Pallots, and census's etc on .Well worth every penny (or £ !!) Shirley

I have to agree - I couldn't have got as far without Ancestry. £70 or so seems expensive, but if you work it out over the year it's less than £1.50p a week. Worth it just for the census information, but there is so much more besides. Kath. x

Ancestry is THE best site (from c1837-present) for researching. It does cost about £65/year but you can't get more for your money anywhere else.

Ihave not actually used the site but have been put off ,when asking for a little help in past some people who advised me found that certain info on ancestory had been mis inscribed which caused no end of problems. as for my direct line im back as far as i can go on a p.c but filling in gaps is the problem. have you guys found any probs with ancestory?

David Show me the site - or indeed the source - which does NOT have mistranscriptions on it! Even parish registers have 'mistakes' of spelling on them, due mostly to the fact that there was no standardised spelling of surnames until 1875. Successful research depends a lot on being able to think outside the box, and mistranscriptions are one of the things which are outside the box. And - at least Ancestry does have a facility for correcting mistranscriptions, unlike many other records. I would agree with everyone else - Ancestry every time. OC

Genes is only good because the paying members make it so.......... For records, you can't beat Ancestry.........as for any mistranscriptions, you have to employ lateral thinking. Many of the 'errors' are due to the fact that those doing the transcribing do not always have English as a first language, and are not familiar with the geography of the country. Reg

Ancestry is worth every penny. As for mistranscriptions, this is down to each individuals interpritation of hand writing. I could not find my grandfather on the 1901 census, I knew where he lived but was unable to find him. I asked for help on GR and some kind person found him.....he had been transcribed as Mandesley, when in fact the name is Maudesley. I then looked at the census myself, and to me, because I know the name, it was Maudesley. We all have difficulty reading other peoples hand writing, what looked like an 'N' to one person is in fact a'U' to the person who knows. This is where the detective part comes in with this hobby. Yes it is time consuming but what else would I be doing if I was not sitting at this computer for hours on end !!!!!!!!! I do not intend to answer that one. Kathlyn

Thanks for all your comment guys and girls , ill give it a go cheers dave

If you want a 'route one' approach where a site will give you the definate correct result then you won't find one. For census searches you have to try different techniques. Searching a particular district or parish page by page for instance, finding the descriptions of the districts (some district boundaries fall in a street, one side will be in one district and the other side in the next district). Searching by christian name only, or christian name and place of birth (or name and year). Bear in mind the enumerator recorded what he thought he heard, several enumerators were needed to cover a district, their individual notes were transcribed to produce a complete district listing and these listings form the transcribed index we search. Is eany wonder that there are errors? At least Ancestry annual subs allow you to try with different search criteria and view the results for an all inclusive price. On Pay Per View or a credits system it would soon mount up to a lot of money for little result.

There are lots of mistranscriptions on Ancestry, but it's still the best value for money, because it has all the censuses, as well as BMDs and various other things. When I first started I hadn't intended to spend a lot on genealogy, so I didn't get an Ancestry subscription. I used FreeBmd and the free 1881 census on familysearch.org, and bought credits from 1837online (now findmypast) for the 1861 census (which is all it had at the time) and the official 1901 census site. The best transcriptions were on the 1901 census site, followed by findmypast, but it cost me a fortune to buy credits. I eventually got an Ancestry subscription, and I'm sure it's saved me a lot of money in the long run. I wouldn't get a subscription to findmypast, because it doesn't have all the censuses.

See other thread 'ancestry' Ancestry is doing an offer until 31 jan. Go on the *com site and pay in dollars. works out at about £90 for world deluxe and £49 for UK. Bargain Jennifer