ancestry I want help with a new site please help?

Question

HELP!! I am tracing my family history and ancestry.com is the best site and wants like 200.00 a yr something like that I need a free site as good as ancestry.com (can't affords 200.00$) please help !!

Answer 1

You can do your genealogy without ever using Ancestry.com, and in fact you could do it without ever using the internet. You can't, however, do it without spending money. Genealogy is a hobby just like anything else. You're eventually going to have to spend money. You don't hear people on the Golf board saying "I want to work on my swing, where can I find a golf course without greens fees, and free clubs?" =P

That said, the cheapER way to do this than using Ancestry.com is to use a combination of things. Vital documents will be key (such as virth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates). Your family will have some in their possession, and those that are not, you can request from the government (this will cost you money, note). Then use FamilySearch.com to see what you can find that matches up. You can take them on their word, or you can go to a Family History Center (they have them all over the world) and request the microfilm to see it for yourself. This, too, will cost you money, and you'll have to actually drive there and do some work.

It'll be cheaper than an Ancestry mebership though.

The only other suggestion I have is to call the local libraries and ask them if they have an Ancestry.com membership that you can use. You used to get Ancestry.com free at Family History Centers, but I hear that's changing because the rate they pay has gone up. (For you, it costs $200, libraries pay something like $2,000 to get use for anyone on their computers.) So this may make it harder to find a place with an institutional membership. Look up genealogical societies in your area, they are pretty likely to have a membership if they have a library of some sort. (In Burbank, CA, very near to where I live, there's an "Immigrant Genealogical Society" that has a library open like 3 days a week. That's the kind of place I'd call if I didn't have my own membership.)

Good luck.

Answer 2

There are no free sites as good as ancestry.com.

Now what you'll need at minimum is access to census images. You can get that free if your state gives you access to HeritageQuest through the library system.

However it's search engine is quite literal and only indexes heads of households.

If you try ONLY census at ancestry.com it's a lot less, I think about half. And boy will you be surprised, it's every person indexed, at least from 1850 forward. There are many ways to search, wild cards, soundex, bracketing for example Peter born MD 1836 +-2 years in the state of IA if the exact surname spelling isn't working out.

Further you can build an online tree FREE at ancestry.com and it'll show you similar matches of others' trees.

Everything at rootsweb.com is free because it's subsidized by ancestry.com memberships. But it's all free. The worldconnect project's a favorite.

Answer 3

I believe that the U.S. Deluxe subscription is normally $155.40 annually. They run specials all the time. They just ran a special for $99.00 a year. Consider this... even at $155.40 for one year, it seems like a huge amount...but if you divide it by 12 months, you are only paying $12.95 a month. That is less than a monthly subscription to Netflix. A genealogist spends about $12.95 or maybe a little less for one document ordered from any vital records office.

The point is this. Genealogy is not free even if you use the "free sites" You pay for vital records, you pay for copies at the library, you pay for the gas to go to the library or the cemetery. Ancestry.com is well worth its money if not for the census alone. To look up the census on microfilm is a two step process, first you look up your ancestor using the soundex code for their surname and IF you locate them on the index, it will tell you where to find them in the census. Then, you have to pull up the census on yet another microfilm. It is time consuming and your not even guaranteed to find them. Ancestry has revolutionized the census. They have an every name index and pulling up a census record can be done in one step. You can also "tweek" the spellings and locations of your ancestor- something NOT easily done with the microfilm system. In fact, if you want to look for your ancestor in another state on the microfilm, you must perform the two step process all over again. Realistically, you probably could do about 10-15 census lookups in one trip to the library and its not even guaranteed that you will find the one you are looking for. To me, the censuses by themselves make Ancestry.com worth the money.

Ancestry has so much more to offer than the census. They have ships manifests, military records, digitized newspapers and they keep adding new stuff all the time.

Nothing is free. Ancestry.com is offering a service so you don't have to spend your money leaving home, making copies, looking through time consuming microfilm rolls. I certainly don't get as much from my cell phone service, or cable service that I get from my Ancestry.com service and I pay so much less.

It is like anything else, how much of a priority is genealogy to you? There are no other FREE sites that have to offer as much as Ancestry. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of free sites with WONDERFUL information and I use those too, but you do get what you pay for.

My advice would be to wait for Ancestry to do their 99 dollar sign up again. Once you sign up at that rate, you will be charged the same at renewal. I hope this helps you to see the value of this fine website. Blessings

Answer 4

The message boards at Ancestry.com are free, and you can find a lot of information from them, or leave messages for folks who might can help you, all for free. I would also recommend the message boards at GenForum and Genealogy.com. I've been doing genealogy online since 1998, and I only subscribe to Ancestry.com to see the censuses. Rootsweb.com has a FREE WorldConnect Project that allows folks to post their family trees and search other people's trees. In fact, everything at Rootsweb is free!