Is ancestry.com all it is cracked up to be?

Question

I have so much information on my family history but I want to go farther then 100 years. Is signing up for the free-trial on there and signing off before the first payment possible?

Answer 1

The answer to your question is that it depends on which countries you're researching. 100 years might be the extent of records that you can find on the internet, regardless of site. If your ancestors lived in the US or Britain for more than the last 100 years, then the odds are that Ancestry can help you go back farther than that. If your ancestors were in Russia or Norway until 80 years ago, that's as far as you're going to go online. Canada and Australia are hit and miss. Germany only gives you passenger records out of the country. Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Portugal and Austria-Hungary, etc  won't have any records on Ancestry farther back than passenger records.

Answer 2

ancestory has a 14 day free trial, but you have to give them your credit card number to activitate it.  It takes more then 14 days to do  a family tree ( i've been working on mine for the last 12 yrs ).  Also just because it may have a relative of yours listed does not mean they are related to you.

example: my maiden name is Putnam , there are 2 lines to the putnam line, the northerns and the southerns and i have yet to find proof that both sides are part of the same tree.

also not all the information is correct ( I have an uncle named shirley and yes its a boy but someone on ancestory has him listed as both a male and female .

I think its worth it as purchased a year sub.

just rememeber to cancel before the end of the 14 days and you won't get charged.  

good luck and happy searching

Answer 3

The money that you spend is really worth the information that is available on this site. I believe that they have to have a credit card number before they let you into the site and I'm not sure if you can cancel before the first payment.

Answer 4

It's worth it if your doing alot of long term research, if your very serious. If you decide to subscribe after free trial, it's much cheaper to pay by the year. If you not to serious, than do monthly.

Answer 5

USA Answer;

I always compare it to HBO. If you wach a movie once a month, unless there is a good game on, HBO isn't worth it. If you watch a movie with three friends once a week, HBO can save you money, plus you don't have to put up with people who go to theaters and are too rude to turn off their cell phones.

If you spend an hour or two a night on genealogy, 3 - 7 nights a week,

and you have a fast internet connection,

and most of your ancestors were in the USA 1850 - 1930,

and you can afford $159 for a year without having to live under a bridge

Ancestry is WELL worth it. I have subscribed for four years.

PS - You should have at least 12 surnames among your 16 gg grandpaents, even if they DID come from Kentucky. Highnote may be one of them, but there should be others. Just a guess.

Answer 6

NO, i had the free trial and ended it before the cut off date and they charged me $150. I Did find some interesting stuff though.

Answer 7

I wouldn't know.

Answer 8

Cool Surname! I wish I had it! But sorry I dont know!

Answer 9

For my own use, I find it is the best for records online. They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They also have U. K. censuses.  They have been transcribed but you can view the original images.  There are errors in their transcriptions but when you view the original you can have pity on the transcribers.

They have immigration records,military recoards, indexes of vital records of many U.S states.  

Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on their website or ANY website, free or paid. The info is subscriber submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented.  You might see different info from different subscribers on the same people. Then you will see repeatedly the same info from different subscribers on the same people, but that is no guarantee at all it is correct. A lot of people copy without verifying.  The info can be useful as CLUES as to where to get the documentation.

I might add surnames are not the way to do famiy research.  Not everyone with the same surname are related and shares ancestors.  Also, you have to realize you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 great great great grandparents.  That is already 62 people and most of them were not a Highnote.  

If you get back to your 6xgreat grandparents,barring any duplicates, you are directly descended from 510 people.  It pyramids.  All of those people are part of you and your heritage.  You might get your mitochondrial DNA from only 8 of them and your Y DNA from only 8 but you get your autosomal (which is what most of your DNA is) from all 510.

Answer 10

It is possible to sign up for the free trial and then canceling before the 14 days is up.  Ancestry.com is only worth it for a few things.  The digitized census records are wonderful.  Every name is indexed now, so even if you do not have info on the father or mother of someone, maybe you can find the person you looking for and finding their parents at the same time.  The also have digitized some Kentucky's death certificates from the 20th century and World War I registration cards.

The only downside is that when trying to search for someone, you get way too many hits with their search engine.  Even if you give them all the info such as birth, death, marriage, parents and spouse, the search engine will give you hits on people you do not even need, despite the facts you give.

So, you decide for yourself.  I sign up at least once a year and then quit after a month.  I usually get the same stuff over and over again, but sometimes I do get lucky and find something I didn't think of before.