Anybody here use Ancestry.com?

[Freebird]

I know that ancestry.com has been around for a long time. I have never tried it and never really had any interest in such things until recently. I'm thinking now that it might be fun to at least see if I can trace the family tree back a little ways. Has anybody used them and are they worth the money?

[SilvrT]

I know that ancestry.com has been around for a long time. I have never tried it and never really had any interest in such things until recently. I'm thinking now that it might be fun to at least see if I can trace the family tree back a little ways. Has anybody used them and are they worth the money?

 

I did... for a while.... until I found out you and I are related.....

[ibents]

I use Ancestry.uk and find it quite usefull, I have traced my grandmothers side back to 1579, also the passenger list of the Empress of Britain that my grandfathers brother sailed on from Liverpool to Quebec in 1913....1 year after the Titanic..... there is a wealth of information on those Ancestry site's especially in the states where you can get all census info going quite aways back.

 

They give you a 14 day trial Don so it may worth it to test the waters.

 

Ian

[Freebird]

I did... for a while.... until I found out you and I are related.....

 

FANTASTIC....so that means you are leaving me in your will?

 

of course first...I would have to outlive you.

[hipshot]

Don.

you might NOT want to dig too deep into the NELSON ancestry.could get very scary!

lol

just jt

[steamer]

We used it.Works well as long as someone in your past kept good records.It relys heavely on past censes,keep in mind the 1890 or 1900 censes was destroyed in a fire can't remember now witch one.makes it diffacult to work around it.It is alot of fun,and alot of work.Took us several months just to go back to 1700's.It did fill in a lot of blanks in our family tree.Also don't relly on correct spelling of the names you are looking for.We thought we were at a dead end when my wife made a slip in spelling my great grand fathers last name.That slip opened up info we never knew.

[Freebird]

Yea...I've thought about that also. My mothers side scares me even more though...I know that even looking at the past two generations...there are....well........

 

I hate to admit it but......lawyers in the family tree.

[Bummer]

My family uses MyHeritage.

 

When I was a kid, my parents traced our family trees back - Dad's side to the early 1700s, my Mom's side to the mid 1800s. Some of the most boring vacations of my youth involved Court Houses, with Dad taking photos of huge books using a press camera. Afterwards Dad and Mom sorted through the pictures and copied the information. They put a lot of work into it.

 

In the '80s I data based the info and gave a copy to a cousin. She eventually found MyHeritage, and pretty much went crazy with it. She's entered over 1900 names, and a couple of large boxes full of photos. And that's just for my Mom's side.

 

I'm slowly entering info into GRAMPS (an open source genealogy system). My first effort was lost to changing formats over the years. Now I save everything in GEDCOM formatted backups in the hopes it won't get lost to standards changes. I still have the old paper copies my parents made, and a copy of the printed output from when I data based it all in the '80s.

 

It's a lot of work to do right, but can be very rewarding.

[etcswjoe]

My family uses MyHeritage.

 

When I was a kid, my parents traced our family trees back - Dad's side to the early 1700s, my Mom's side to the mid 1800s. Some of the most boring vacations of my youth involved Court Houses, with Dad taking photos of huge books using a press camera. Afterwards Dad and Mom sorted through the pictures and copied the information. They put a lot of work into it.

 

In the '80s I data based the info and gave a copy to a cousin. She eventually found MyHeritage, and pretty much went crazy with it. She's entered over 1900 names, and a couple of large boxes full of photos. And that's just for my Mom's side.

 

I'm slowly entering info into GRAMPS (an open source genealogy system). My first effort was lost to changing formats over the years. Now I save everything in GEDCOM formatted backups in the hopes it won't get lost to standards changes. I still have the old paper copies my parents made, and a copy of the printed output from when I data based it all in the '80s.

 

It's a lot of work to do right, but can be very rewarding.

 

 

I have used it since it came online, however make sure you double check the sources or view the original document the typed in information tends to have errors when it gets copied. Most libraries have free access if you want to try it.

[SilvrT]

FANTASTIC....so that means you are leaving me in your will?

 

of course first...I would have to outlive you.

 

yes... leaving you right out of it...

[aharbi]

I used it for awhile as part of a SW package. Everytime I found what looked like something there was an additional charge, or upgrade or something they wanted more money for. I gave it up.

[saddlebum]

Yea...I've thought about that also. My mothers side scares me even more though...I know that even looking at the past two generations...there are....well........

 

I hate to admit it but......lawyers in the family tree.

I hope its not herditary ....becasuse we do kinda like you

[GAWildKat]

I'm one of the genealogists in the family,, I have used ancestry.com, it is a wonderful resource of information. But if you want to try it absolutely free without risk of them billing you, find the nearest Mormon church with a family history center, the international church has a subscription to ancestry.com as well as other resources that can help you with the research. Most family history centers also teach classes on genealogy research for free and are open to non church members. As a wee kid of 19 I got into genealogy because my parents were older and I didn't have the luxury of waiting til I was much older to get the information, my first stop was to the local library, from there they sent me to the church after I exhausted their resources. Before Dad passed away 3 yrs later I was able to give him a treasure of knowing where his ppl came from. Since then on my paternal grandfather's side I have been able to trace back to before 1000AD. But I was very lucky that my family line was a well documented royal line. Hubby has not been so lucky, being that his Dad's family comes from Croatia many of the old records were lost in all the warring and we may never trace a complete line.

[utadventure]

I've used familysearch.com It's free and has a lot of both family geneology records and information from census and other records.

 

Dave

[Marcarl]

Don't want to rain on anybody's parade,,,,,,,, but I have a question: why would anybody,(in place of you only Don) want to find out who came before them,,,, does it serve any real purpose?

[GAWildKat]

I like history so for me it was as much about learning about someone's history that I could connect with. Like I can say I have 3 2nd great-grandfathers who fought @ Gettysburg in different companies. One took a bayonet to the lung and lives to be an old man, another was with Lee when he surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse VA, got his pay and started walking home to GA. Never made it home. I've learned there was a Confederate cemetery in Australia that has a tombstone with his name and dates close to his, will I ever know if the 2 names are the same person, prolly not. But it's fun to research it.

[Eck]

Don,

Your NOT related to Willie.......

 

Oh, and to answer your question...sorry but "no" I have not used it..

[hipshot]

Eck. i seriously believe you are mistaken!

there are multitudes of NELSONS that are distantly related to Willey.

and we also go back to "Lord Byron Nelson". before that it's all English and IRISH, blood.

 

just jt

[Rocket]

we also go back to "Lord Byron Nelson". before that it's all English and IRISH, blood.

 

just jt

 

That means, I could be related to you & Don (mom's side of the family)........... I was having a good day, prior to reading this.

 

[oldgoat]

well dang i found out i could be related to Obama but im still waiting for the birth records to prove it???

[Gray Ghost]

There are a lot of resources online to help you with genealogy. Ancestry.com is a good resource because of all the records you can find there. You can post your tree online as you build it, which allows other people to find it and make comments and sometimes give you good info.

For a really decent standalone software, Legacy is a good choice. You can get a free version which is still pretty powerful.

 

Some other online resources: familysearch which has already been mentioned is excellent. USGenWeb has folks who run websites with information for every county in the US. I have found a lot of cemetery information in their archives (just have to know where your family was at).

 

As far as what purpose does it serve, it has given me a better understanding of some of the issues in our history. It has also brought me into contact with some cousins I would never have met if I hadn't been doing genealogy.

[mrich12000]

That means, I could be related to you & Don (mom's side of the family)........... I was having a good day, prior to reading this.

 

 

Me to..

[Freebird]

I took a quick look at familysearch.com and didn't find it very helpful. It didn't even bring up myself, my father or my grandparents and ancestry.com found those easily.

[Condor]

I got into geneology about 15 years ago using the web, but haven't done much with it for years. I lucked into a bunch of info by just searching the web with some of the old search engines. Of course my surname isn't that common so it was a little easier than Smith.... Here's a place that might be of help when trying to trace the tree.... http://www.cyndislist.com/

I also use Brother's Keeper software to keep everything straight. http://www.bkwin.org/

So far I go back to 1642 and haven't spent a dime....

[Bummer]

Don't want to rain on anybody's parade,,,,,,,, but I have a question: why would anybody,(in place of you only Don) want to find out who came before them,,,, does it serve any real purpose?

 

I think it imparts a greater understanding of history, which can help one understand what's going on today.

 

I know that on my Dad's side my earliest ancestors on this continent came from Basil Switzerland and settled in the Luray Valley of Virginia. I also learned that when people came here in the 1700s they had to buy land where they disembarked. My ancestors sold the land they bought at a huge loss so they could move on. This resulted in what amounted to a rather large tax for coming here. This information helps put modern immigration arguments into perspective. We also learned that our surname was changed when the original father and two sons came here, and we found folks we're related to in both Switzerland and Germany.

 

I learned that my Mom's paternal grandmother was a Native American, though we do not know which tribe. It's believed that she was from a tribe that was assimilated. (Read: mostly killed off, and no longer recognized.) I also learned that Mom's maternal grandfather ran a tavern in Terre Haute. That branch was followed all the way back to Germany. Unfortunately her Dad's side lead to a dead end. Brown can be a pretty hard name to chase back. Add in a Court House fire that destroyed all the records and that was that.

 

During one of the otherwise boring vacations we were taken on as children, we found "Bloody Ford" and Fort Rodes on the Shenandoah river. On a motorcycling vacation in 1990 (on my '85 VR) we found an old family homestead with graveyard. After my Mom passed away I had to catalog all her stuff. I found maps of the Shenandoah Valley indicating several grave sites that the local Historical Society had lost track of. Because of everything else I knew what I was looking at, and that there are others who are interested in this information.

 

Real value? Probably not a lot. Emotional value? Quite a bit, actually.

 

I feel that a web site can act as a starting point to pique interest, but to truly understand it all, I think the individual has to walk around in an overgrown lilac patch and actually stumble upon the grave stones.