View Full Version : Ancestory.com
Thoughts? Worth the money? I was interested and started my own searches last night and found way more info then I imagined really. Don't want to waste the money on the site if you think I can do the searching myself. It perhaps would be simpler to use the site?
My husband has spent hundreds of hours happily building family trees from all the info on Ancestry. My brother also. Found out all kinds of interesting info and thru the DNA found even more. Connected with relatives too. He just told me he has almot 20,000 hints to research and has had to limit his searches or he "goes down the rabbit hole".
We did find out he is of English background not Irish as he was always told. I found out a relative was a French trader in Senegal, Africa in 1859. I love the stories.
IshbelRobertson
5-3-17, 5:21pm
My husband has hit a brick wall in the early 1700s. He's about to submit a test.
My sis and I got DNA tests for my mom and dad. They both loved the gifts.
You can use the basic Ancestry service at your library free of charge, and then pay for additional services on a month by month basis, if you choose, Free services, like Rootsweb.com and FamilySearch.org might give you everything you need.
Thanks all! Sorry about the misspelling:|(
I think I will had so much fun hunting on my own. My mother (passed on) use to say her father was an orphan and took the name of the farm family. Perhaps on the Orphan Train? SO that would be where everything stopped. Last night in my easy search I found his birth and city and parents names from 1895. SO either the man never wanted to see his family again or maybe it was the truth. Either way mom never said she ever heard of them or met them. And by the death dates, she could have heard of them when she was young actually.
Father's side, interesting in that his grandmother had a German last name, dad is 88 and had a very good idea what the name was, but then there was another name. First thing that I got was the grave sites on search for a grave. The name appears to be changed to a more american name around 1920. Found grandfather's ship records as he was Captain on the Lakes. Amazing really I thought.
Oh and so much more I found. I can see how this could be a hobby for many.
Husband also found out a big proportion of his family came to the Americas in the early 1600s in the great migration. Settled in the northeast. Now we are tracking down Revolutionary War and Civil War stories.
One thing Ancestry can do is connect you with people who are related to you--for good or ill. Very helpful in the case of an adoption.
I've used it for about 5 years now, and highly recommend it. There is no way I could have done all this myself. I also did the DnA, and they connect with cousins if you like. I have a lot of cousins I did not know about, and they match you to your ancestors, which is really nice because you can prove descent from ancestors and check that you have the right ancestors. I have also started tree for my husband and my son, and that is fascinating. Yes, I have spent many hours on it, but it's kind of addictive, like Sodoku only with people instead of numbers.
Most of my American ancestry is documented but I'd never known much about the regions they immigrated from. I thought the DNA analysis was worthwhile and helped with that. Just like the commercials, the family stories were off. I got several pages of possible 3rd and 4th cousins I could contact through Ancestry, but that's a little further removed than I care about.
I have a friend whose mother (deceased) was adopted and his family had no knowledge of her adoption circumstances or people. His DNA analysis and list of possible matches eventually lead to an uncle or cousin of his mother's who could tell him a little about his maternal grandparents and why his mother was put up for adoption. He was pretty happy about that.
For the going rate, the DNA results they provide seems like an huge bargain to me.
I've used it for about 5 years now, and highly recommend it. There is no way I could have done all this myself. I also did the DnA, and they connect with cousins if you like. I have a lot of cousins I did not know about, and they match you to your ancestors, which is really nice because you can prove descent from ancestors and check that you have the right ancestors. I have also started tree for my husband and my son, and that is fascinating. Yes, I have spent many hours on it, but it's kind of addictive, like Sodoku only with people instead of numbers.
+1
Yeah, you can do it yourself, but why would you? You can still fill in the gaps by yourself, but Ancestry gives you SUCH a huge head start. I also did the DNA.. not expecting any surprises, and I didn't get any, but it was fun validation. It's a great hobby for under $30 a month. The tools they give you are great. I learned a lot about my ancestors here and abroad.
Oh My the fun I have had today with this! a
SO when I could not sleep as usual, I was thinking about history and the searching I have done. Gosh the stuff I have uncovered, marriages, children and babies that did not live so many. That is really sad. How many births some of the women had, OMG what a life. I have not gone far back yet maybe 1850. I swear it reads like the Grapes of Wrath in someways. I was having fun, then I started thinking leave the past alone.
Where did/does what material possessions they all had go? I googled address to my grandmother's home in 1920 in Flint(most moved a lot I can see). Oh My, the neighborhood is at best on Zillow $2,500-$5,000 values. The two track drives are still in place. I thought of how proud they must have been when they bought it at one time. Now too many boarded windows in the area. I was going to look up as many as possible, not sure I want to now.
Ok a few days into this. I can understand how this can be very habit forming, how it can become a study. I had fun without getting really deep into it.
I love history, I love the early years of the USA, I love reading about just people and settlers, regular people, so one would think this would have been me all over. I got some what sad though. The poor Women, so many babies, so many died, the number of pregnancies was overwhelming to me. Marriages, many had a few as husband or wife died so young. The moves from East to wherever and the migration with all the similar others during each time.
I then jumped to researching the different eras and woman's/Wife rights. Ugg that was just sad to me. I know Like I did not really know that, but now there were actual names to these eras.
I knew life was hard in those eras, I just now understand how really hard it was. I remember we had a posting a while back about would you like to live in 1800 ( or such). What seemed like simple times, seems like survival now to me and Nope I would not want too. Gosh the death certificates were enough for me.
SO I had fun I understand we are Mutts ;) and that is enough for me!
heatmiser
8-27-18, 10:41pm
Ok a few days into this. I can understand how this can be very habit forming, how it can become a study. I had fun without getting really deep into it.
SO I had fun I understand we are Mutts ;) and that is enough for me!
I always remember Bill Murray's speech from the movie "Stripes", talking about how we Americans
are "Mutts'. His character said : "We're AMERICANS; our ancestors were kicked out of
every decent country on Earth". I think that's something to be proud of, somehow.
A big part of what I get out of Ancestry is an understanding of the cultures of past times,
beyond just my family, and how families coped with cultural or physical barriers.
For instance women were legally chattels in some colonies
(a shameful reflection on the culture) and in every instance I have
seen, the husbands engineered their wills to give their widows control of the bulk of their estates;
the widows in turns used "Deeds" to divide their estates, if the colony discouraged wills by
females, and their sons never disputed those deeds. People were constantly finding end-runs around
the institutionalized racial and sexual discrimination of the day.
I spent a couple of years intensely researching my ancestry and felt Ancestry.com was worth it, though not all information is legit. Some are people submitting what they think is true, ditto the LDS databases.
I also visited libraries including NEHGS and corresponded with people. A couple of times I hired professional genealogists for small projects.
In the US most vital records are at the county level and I bought a book listing all those contacts.
A great free resource are census records which I looked at on microfiche or microfilm, it's been awhile so I don't remember which, at the local office of the National Archives.
Those distant cousins are helpful if thry have also been bitten by the genealogy bug.
This interest has lain dormant for many years, but recently my mother submitted a DNA test and we are awaiting results. I always focused on my dad's side due to language barriers and the destruction of records in wartime on hers.
Teacher Terry
8-28-18, 2:52pm
Anymore long lost relatives can go straight to hell after my last experience.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.