I’ve used a number of genealogy and family resources (ancesty.com) included. Here, I hope to provide an overview to help you decide if a membership at Ancestry.com is right for you and if the free resources found on the site could be of use to you in your search for your ancestors.
The Free Side of Ancestry.com
First, lets get started with the free services provided by Ancestry.com.
Ancestry offers a membership through subscription to access much of it’s mult-billion ancestor database. However, the site provides some awesome tools for free (with hopes that you’ll sign up for the service later). You can use the free services at the site, and get a lot of the site.
The greatest free resource available through ancestry.com is the Online Family Tree Program. With the family tree portion of the Ancestry website, you can upload your family tree file or start from scratch entering your genealogy information.
Returning to the site later, you can pick up where you left off because it saves the information you’ve entered and protects it by having you create a password to access your family tree.
What’s neat about the family tree tool:
- Collaborate with other family members – Share family history information with only those whom you want to see it. Give accounts to your family members across the world, and they’ll be able to upload information that they have. No more losing information in the mail or having to send lots of email attachments with records. Now, you can share all your research with the whole family. Leave a legacy of research that won’t be lost in a box in the attic!
- Easy to use – Export a Gedcom file from your computer and upload it to populate your tree. You can also enter information by hand as you go.
- Looks great compared to other programs – The tree has a very professional look to it and the colors used are easy on the eyes (compared to others out there I’ve used).
- You can upload rich multi-media content – Don’t be satisfied with just looking at dates and names on your tree, upload pictures, records, and stories. You can add oral histories over the phone. It couldn’t be easier.
- Researches your genealogy for you while you sleep – The family tree makes record searches in the background for each individual. That means that you can take a break while the system researches if your ancestors are included in certain censuses in the US or England, if they’re included in war records or old newspapers. A little green leaf will appear next to the persons in your family tree for whom the site has found possible records matches (to view/download many of the records, you’ll need a subscription to the site).
The form below can get you started with the free Pedigree Chart portion of the Ancestry site:
Searching for records
If you’re ready to jump right in searching for records, then you’ll want to consider a trial membership of the Ancestry site.
The site generally offers two main memberships: US Deluxe and Worldwide Deluxe.
The US plan gives you access to US records while the Worldwide plan gives you access to US AND records from other countries such as the UK, Canada, Ireland and many other countries.
If you sign up for their annual plan, you’ll save $$ as opposed to going with the monthly plan.
The great thing about the site is that new information is added each week. Ancestry is obsessed with adding new databases to its collection on a weekly basis, so the chances of finding more matches to your family tree and ancestors increase each week.
Scope of records at Ancestry.com
Ancestry has over 5 billion records that you can search through (that’s a lot of records). You’ll find:
- Census records
- Newspaper articles
- Birth records
- Death records & obituaries
- Marriage records
- Immigration records
- Military records
- Criminal records
- Written histories
What’s great is that in most cases, you’ll be able to see a scan of the original record and download it for your own records. Information found in the censuses is extremely interesting. Depending on the census, you’ll see if your ancestors could read/write, what their occupation was, and the people living in their households.
Ancestry also offers services such as DNA testing to discover where your ancestral heritage hails from (different DNA experts may interpret the same results in different ways, but it is interesting stuff).
You can get a taste by searching some of their records by clicking the ad below:
Is Ancestry.com right for you?
I’ve personally found Ancestry helpful in finding valuable census records for family members, and the family tree program online has proved very valuable. You can always try it to see if it works for you or use it for a defined time.
For a specific ancestor search, fill in the information into the ad below and click the search button. You never know what might turn up!
