i have recieved my family tree from my cousin?

Question

and i am registered on ancestry.co.uk so i can build my tree and add certain documents. but when i go to add certain documents it asks for payment details. plze help as im desperate to fill it in as my great great great great grandfather goes back to 1780 and i'd love to find more info on him

Answer 1

Hey applesqui...,

They will keep asking you for money. You should build your own tree on your own computer. Only share when it is free.

Get the GEDCOM file from ancestry.co.uk - that is the universal Genealogy file format. All the software packages accept that as input.

Here are some software programs you can use. LDS is free, but you get what you pay for. Look at the comparisons.

Answer 2

If you are looking mostly for ancestors in England and Wales, then ancestry.com is worth the subscription money.

You can trace births, marriages and deaths, and also find out about your ancestors' brothers and sisters on the census records.

It is a bit pricey I know. I guess it depends how important it is to you.

Be aware though that there will be times when ancestry.com cannot give you the info you need, and you will have to buy a certificate from the General Records Office at £7 a pop.

If you live near the area where your ancestors came from, visit the local records office (phone the Council and ask them where it is and how it operates.) This might be a cheaper option for you.

Answer 3

You can download software to build your tree for no cost from the (Mormon) site www.familysearch.org. I've been working on my tree for 12 years, and gave up using Ancestry because of their ever-increasing costs. An additional great site for finding free information is www.cyndislist.com, which is a well indexed series of almost 300,000 current links related to family research and general genealogical questions.
If you are just starting, try using the free software to build your tree. As you progress and look for primary source documents, that's the time to start putting out funds. Good luck and I think you'll be happily surprised at how fast you discover family.

Answer 4

If you have to pay, forget it. Adding those documents will not make you more legitimate. Now if you are searching for those documents, it might be worthwhile.

One of the things you can search is boat records. By 1780 they should have had detailed manifests of the passengers on every boat. If you know when he arrived and where, you can find the boats that arrived then and check for his name. More difficult if you don't know when, of course.

Answer 5

Try going to 'genesreunited' instead. You can build your tree there without being asked for cash every 5 minutes. There may be a joining fee of £10 (I think. I may be getting confused with other sites!) and I have found it easier to cope with than Ancestry.
Well done getting back so far!

Answer 6

Ancestry is hard to use and expensive, too. All the suggestions you've had are good, but please be aware that Ancestry will carry on helping themselves to cash from your bank account via an annual Direct Debit unless you stop it before it comes up again next year. Neither they nor your card issuer will return your money, even if you have not used them for over a year.

So when you stop using them (you will, they're very poor) make sure you stop paying them, too.

Answer 7

Well, you need to pay for the service you require, don't you? No one does a free business ;). If you dont have any credit card, why don't you just look into the local yellowpages and search for this service. Good luck!

Answer 8

It costs them money to offer you this service. Why not pay it, if it's important to you?