RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: jess5athome on Wednesday 26 August 15 15:41 BST (UK)
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Don't know if it's been mentioned but Ancestry.co.uk are giving free access this bank holiday weekend.
Frank ;)
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Thanks for that Frank! I use my local library to access ancestry's records, but it's always nice to do some research from home :)
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Great News Frank !! :)
Thanks for letting us know.
Sarah
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Thankyou. :)
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Thanks for that Frank!
Shame I'm away Friday & Saturday? But there's always Sunday & Monday!! ;D
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Great News Frank !! :)
Thanks for letting us know.
Sarah
I wish you hadn't have told Sarah. We'll never get out of the house this bank holiday weekend now. :P
Trystan
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My shortlist for this weekend is to achieve two objectives:
- go house by house through an entire village census for 1901 to try to find out where my relatives were hiding (they must have been there, everybody else was). If they're not there, they are on the other side of the river in one of the terraces, or up the road on another 20 roads..... I hope they turn up before page 200.... or it could be a looooooong weekend. I am working on it being a mistranscription ....as they're not on anybody's indexes.
- try to nail my GG-grandmother's parents.
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Thank you. I have been hoping they would.
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I'm awaiting findmypast's next free weekend too.... Some of their records (in particular the newspaper archives) aren't available on a library subscription
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???
Dumb question - but will this free access weekend help me to find out what my grandfather did for a living?
CLARKE, Frank Charles
b. 4 April 1892
Westham Essex
d. 25 May 1967
interred crem near Peterborough
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:-\
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Laura, you may find him in the 1901 and 1911 census, the latter may have occupation. Then there are the Military records for you to look at.
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???
Dumb question - but will this free access weekend help me to find out what my grandfather did for a living?
CLARKE, Frank Charles
b. 4 April 1892
Westham Essex
d. 25 May 1967
interred crem near Peterborough
Is there no family about that might know? Snippets, anything really.
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???
Dumb question - but will this free access weekend help me to find out what my grandfather did for a living?
Laura,
In a couple of days you can find out if you can or not :)
Trystan
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I know there are military records about my grandfather but that doesn't take me to 1920 when my father was born.
My Dad & my Aunt were born in Manchester, Rusholme Parish, but moved to Cambridge when my Dad was 3 to 4 yrs old.
My Aunt is alive but dementia has set in and her son (my cousin) doesn't know of his employment.
He only remembers our grandfather having nicely shined shoes and a crisp crease on his trousers.
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What occupation is on your father's birth certificate?
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Laura - your father's birth certificate and your grandfather's marriage certificate will give his occupation. In the 1911 census he would have been 19, so will have had an occupation, but it may not have been the same one he spent the majority of his life doing. Worth looking at though....
Manchester marriage records are on Ancestry, so it's worth looking for your grandfather's marriage there.
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Unfortunately, I do not have my father's birth certificate.
Think I need to apply to Gov.UK for it or my cousins' in England have it.
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"Am I going to be the first to moan about this?"
msr, you are me duck, but I am sure you won't be the last ;D
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Unfortunately, I do not have my father's birth certificate.
Think I need to apply to Gov.UK for it or my cousins' in England have it.
Frank Charles Clarke
Apr 1892
West Ham Essex
4a/20
1901 census the family were in Norfolk and father John Hawkins Clarke was a shopkeeper dealing in earthenware...
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"Am I going to be the first to moan about this?"
msr, you are me duck, but I am sure you won't be the last ;D
I was going to say the same thing but thought better of it ;D
I can see where you are coming from msr but these things happen, and yes, I'm a subscriber to Ancestry, if I can't get on over the weekend then I'll have to search on FindMyPast ;) :)
Frank.
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Might have a squiz over the weekend. Stopped my subscription ( due to many reasons) and this will be good to quickly chase 1 or 2 leads down
Thanks Frank :)
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Is it worldwide access or just UK? I already have UK access but I've found a few distant relatives emigrated so would be handy to access those records
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Is It Me???
I have managed to get access to some random English records but when I try Scottish/Irish records it goes to "sign up for 14 days free trial"
Anyone else got problems?
Andrew
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Is It Me???
I have managed to get access to some random English records but when I try Scottish/Irish records it goes to "sign up for 14 days free trial"
Anyone else got problems?
Andrew
Dunno, link on signing in leads to full list of stuff:
**Access to the records in the featured collections will be free until 31st August 2015 at 23:59 GMT. After the free access period ends, you will only be able to view the records in the featured collections using an Ancestry.co.uk paid membership. To see a full list of the records in the featured collection
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/group/uk_irish_records
And the first thing I excitedly looked up said that it got its information from familysearch - which I already knew anyway!
Looks like they might've oversold their stall :)
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Yes, there are some Family Search records available on Ancestry, as there are on FindMyPast. BUT, luckily, there are also many more records on Ancestry which are fully indexed and with images. Perhaps you were just unlucky in your initial search. :'(
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I cant view family trees ( others not my own) but that is of little consequence.
I seem to be able to view what I want. Just gotta find it!!!
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I already have UK and Irish sub to Anc. But I wait with bated breath for another free access weekend to immigration records or Aus, NZ or US Canada records due to the several ancestor siblings and cousins who emigrated.
Even now sometimes with census indexed online, I still do it the old fashioned way to find someone who may be hiding. Scroll through the village returns sheet by sheet. Do it the long way, it can help.
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I've just found my G-grandparents. It was an academic exercise as I knew that they weren't anywhere else. His family in the village 100+ years, she'd married him there, they lived there (other evidence in the newspapers etc etc) ....so I knew they were there, I just had to stop looking for "them" and start looking at mistranscriptions etc.
And there they were. As plain and clear as day, 100% absolutely them ....but the enumerator had re-written their names entirely wrongly. Both had been given a new name (only the initial was correct) and he'd misspelt the surname by a bit.
So I found them on the street I expected, in the village I expected.
It's nice to have that jigsaw piece, even if I didn't need it to progress.
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Even now sometimes with census indexed online, I still do it the old fashioned way to find someone who may be hiding. Scroll through the village returns sheet by sheet. Do it the long way, it can help.
There is a lot to be said for doing it the old fashioned way. I have had several instances where a family was started towards the bottom of one page and carried over to the next and the "carried over" part of the family has been missed out of the transscription. I have also come across a similar issue where the pages in the census return have been photographed in the wrong order i.g. the images go from page 59 to 61 with p60 at a different point in the set. When that happened I checked the originals on both ancestry and FindMyPast and the same images were used in both cases.
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Even now sometimes with census indexed online, I still do it the old fashioned way to find someone who may be hiding. Scroll through the village returns sheet by sheet. Do it the long way, it can help.
There is a lot to be said for doing it the old fashioned way. I have had several instances where a family was started towards the bottom of one page and carried over to the next and the "carried over" part of the family has been missed out of the transscription. I have also come across a similar issue where the pages in the census return have been photographed in the wrong order i.g. the images go from page 59 to 61 with p60 at a different point in the set. When that happened I checked the originals on both ancestry and FindMyPast and the same images were used in both cases.
Better to be thorough. My ancestor William Taylor is in Canewdon, Essex in 1851 to 1871, his wife dies in 1871 and he is in Canewdon in 1885 on the electoral rolls as William Taylor Snr as he had a son with the same name. But he is nowhere to be seen in 1881 and I have trawled through the census pages for Canewdon 1881 a few times. He may have missed the census.
They may be in the census but in disguise.
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Even now sometimes with census indexed online, I still do it the old fashioned way to find someone who may be hiding. Scroll through the village returns sheet by sheet. Do it the long way, it can help.
There is a lot to be said for doing it the old fashioned way.
It's good when you have a location you're sure of, but when your ancestors are mobile, you simply can't "just read" the entire nation!
I recently did some research where a guy from Diss was living just outside Ipswich, but only for 1 decade. I'd never have found him, the old fashioned way.
It's similar to doing a single name study in a PR. It's thorough (deep) but narrow.
BugBear
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I've just found my G-grandparents. It was an academic exercise as I knew that they weren't anywhere else. His family in the village 100+ years, she'd married him there, they lived there (other evidence in the newspapers etc etc) ....so I knew they were there, I just had to stop looking for "them" and start looking at mistranscriptions etc.
Given Ancestry's excellent search facilities, when the "obvious" searches fail, I always suspect mistranscription of the surname.
A useful technique is to search for the "family", by searching for a particular combination of christian names, with the most distinctive christian name as the "home" person.
This is easy, since ancestry supports searching for the spouse, mother, father or child of your central target.
Christian names in combination can be just a selective as surnames, and are less prone to mispelling.
BugBear (who currently has a FindMyPast sub, and HATES the search facilities)
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3 hours I just spent on Ancestry ..... 3 hours ..... "just" to find somebody that I know exists and where they exist.
A mother + 5 children, in one parish, in the 1841 Census. Easy to find on familysearch - there it is, just by keying in the name. Job's a good 'un as they say. I had the familysearch page/results loaded, to give me my starter clues.... and still it's taken all evening.
Could I find it in Ancestry??? Could I heck as like. Ended up going through over 40 pages, name by name to find it. So, what was so hard? Complete mistranscription!
A surname of 7 letters long, they got all four consonants (including the first letter) wrong - they only got the vowels right. If I'd been "looking for them" instead of just wanting a little screenie of that section, I'd have never found them in a month of Sundays. They hadn't even got any of the first names right for any of the kids either!
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Given Ancestry's excellent search facilities, when the "obvious" searches fail, I always suspect mistranscription of the surname.
I hate Ancestry's search/results. It's really not working the way I work at all ... best way I've found is to find everything elsewhere first, from the other sites then try to find things on Ancestry.
A useful technique is to search for the "family", by searching for a particular combination of christian names, with the most distinctive christian name as the "home" person.
This is easy, since ancestry supports searching for the spouse, mother, father or child of your central target.
Christian names in combination can be just a selective as surnames, and are less prone to mispelling.
BugBear (who currently has a FindMyPast sub, and HATES the search facilities)
It doesn't work if you're searching for: David, Patricia and Susan .... and when you finally find the record they've transcribed it as Pavit, Rutilia and Wan.
:)
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SC,
I'm in kinks ;D ;D ;D
You need to write & ask them which language it's been transcribed in ??? ::)
Annie
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SC,
I'm in kinks ;D ;D ;D
You need to write & ask them which language it's been transcribed in ??? ::)
Annie
One thing I did see was that somebody has built the exact tree I am trying to work out .... and it's a public access tree, but I can't see it. They're working to different dates to what I'm aware of - so intrigued to know if it's a relative I know, or a random/stranger-related to me that I don't know yet - and where they got their dates from .... as they don't fit mine :)
Mind you, I'm short by "a suitcase full of FHS transcriptions of every parish in the county" to be able to discuss/check if they're right or wrong. I'm assuming, therefore, that they're right, which has dampened my spirits a little, until I can buy that suitcase full of PR transcripts to nail it.
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You could ask someone with acces to direct them to this site.
I used to do it for a friend when I had a "sub" if she seen any possible links & she would get me to send a message with details to compare :P
Annie
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You could ask someone with acces to direct them to this site.
I used to do it for a friend when I had a "sub" if she seen any possible links & she would get me to send a message with details to compare :P
Annie
Oh, I'm more of a wallflower....I don't like to "bother people". I was wondering if the Library Edition gives access to those trees, I'm betting it doesn't.
I just want a peek really - I bet if I saw their tree it'd turn out to either be abandoned or something. That's the trouble, how they "suck you in" :)
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Have you check out other sites with trees in case they have one elsewhere ?
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Have you check out other sites with trees in case they have one elsewhere ?
I've never found that family on any other formal site. I've found online trees where his name is mentioned, but then they get lost too and abandon it, but it's a tiny part of their distant tree. The ancestry tree is obviously being worked by somebody directly in my line/tree (based on the name they gave it).
I have patience....they've all been a long time dead and aren't going anywhere. This guy died about 150 years ago.... but I know there's a "story" to be dug out somewhere as he seems so elusive and not with his wife (who seems to be up the road at their son's house) ... if I've got them all correct so far.
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Do I have to pay anything up front for this free trial?
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No...................It's straight forward.
Not up to much though ::)
I didn't have to give any details for credit card.
Annie
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Reading some of the comments it would appear that "Public Trees" are not visible to people trying it out, it does not affect me (Ancestry Member :) ) but if that's the case they look to be trying to lure people in.
I suppose that's what business is all about.
Frank.
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I recently did some research where a guy from Diss was living just outside Ipswich, but only for 1 decade. I'd never have found him, the old fashioned way.
BugBear
I don't know the circumstances of this of course, but sometimes the people recorded on a particular census may have only been there overnight; a few days or weeks; or even missed because they were in transit. I was at home the night of the last census, but could quite easily have been on holiday somewhere.
Raises a question that I hadn't given much thought to previously: Were those at 36000 feet given a census form to fill in? :-\
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Ancestry 'Public Trees' is rather a misnomer StanleysChesterton, not really for public access in the wider sense, which is why you can't see everything they have.
A Public tree is one where a subscriber doesn't mind others who have paid their dues having access to their research, photos etc. (or haven't yet realised that there will be some who will help themselves to the information without doing any of the necessary work).
A Private tree owner can invite others to see their work, share, and even edit as seen fit. This allows family members, no matter how distant, to help each other to build the greater picture.
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Sometimes trees are in the Public Trees section yet when I click on a name it says Contact this member for more information.
Yes, FamilySearch has census results that I cannot find on Ancestry. And FindMyPast can help as well. Sometimes I even search by birthplace but birthplaces can be grossly mistranscribed such as Woodtriop for Woodbridge or Parting, Essex instead of Terling, Essex
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::) Maybe its a good thing that Public Trees aren't viewable. Maybe Ancestry finally realised the power of RootsChat and have tried to hide them from us so we wont continuously complain about ''how blurry wrong'' they are ;D
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::) Maybe its a good thing that Public Trees aren't viewable. Maybe Ancestry finally realised the power of RootsChat and have tried to hide them from us so we wont continuously complain about ''how blurry wrong'' they are ;D
Love it!! ;D ;D ;D
Frank.
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Well I found another family, that I wasn't looking for until today, and they're either living under an assumed name, or the transcriber didn't understand their Fen accent.
Instead of a 7-letter name, it's become 5 letters and only the first letter is correct :)
I'd 'given up' looking for the fella who is being elusive and, instead, decided to try to follow his family to see if he randomly turned up at their house as an OAP.
The search and waiting for screens to load is tortuous - as is having to do a CCleaner every 2 hours and a reboot to keep the PC chugging along.
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I'm not sure what others are getting with searches but all I have been able to find is census records (if I'm lucky) & a few old baptisms or marriages.
Nothing yet that I can call a find as I can find more on FREE sites :-\
NO FREE BMD's (1837) onwards England/Wales have come up............is anyone else managing to access the BMD's ???
Annie
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What are you looking for Annie? Can I help at all?
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Just spent a few hours trawling through the records and found a birth record that I have been searching for ages and a few more interesting titbits of information so well worth the time, I always wondered how good bad or indifferent ancestry.com was and it looks worth the fee if you can afford it that is, did someone say that the site is usually free via library computers? :)
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Certainly in England, most libraries have access to Ancestry - probably .co.uk. so limited to British Isles (predominantly England and Wales). I'm not definitely sure about the coverage of the Library edition, so I could be wrong and it's worldwide.
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You have to register though and input your bank details. Remember to cancel it afterwards or you will be charged £119.
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Certainly in England, most libraries have access to Ancestry - probably .co.uk. so limited to British Isles (predominantly England and Wales). I'm not definitely sure about the coverage of the Library edition, so I could be wrong and it's worldwide.
Ancestry Library Edition is .com, and is worldwide, with some functionality missing!
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I've been offered free access on other occasions and have not had to sign up for a free trial first.
This weekend it seems that is the only way to get into the records, or am I missing something???
Please help if you can
Cheers
Kerry
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The differences between home and Library edition (ALE) are here
http://help.ancestry.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5237/kw/institutional%20version
Since the demise of Mundia, Ancestry have put public trees on Library Edition but without the 'contact' aspect. Not so long ago, there weren't any trees on 'Library'
However, as Ancestry tends to be US biased, finding the UK records can be bothersome. But my top tip for ALE would be to 'begin searching' (button on home page) and then go to the 'card catalogue' at the top right of the screen and search for a dataset there eg '1891' for 1891 census, 'england deaths', 'electoral' for registers, 'probate' for the national calendars etc
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I've been offered free access on other occasions and have not had to sign up for a free trial first.
This weekend it seems that is the only way to get into the records, or am I missing something???
Please help if you can
Cheers
Kerry
Same for me, and I was wondering if I was missing something as well. I'm not signing up for the free trial. Free access for the weekend 28th - 31st August isn't the same as signing up for a free trial.
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Hi
It is definitely free access not a free trial. The link below has some information including a link to the record sets accessable. Is it possible you are trying to access record sets not included in the free offer?
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access)
Andy
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Thanks for responding Andy. No I wasn't trying to access records not available for the weekend, I couldn't even get that far.
I sent them an email on Saturday, and just got a reply now (Monday in Australia). I had to sign in
first apparently, but the email I received originally just directed me to 'Start Searching', so that is what I tried to do. I've never had a subscription to Ancestry, I just receive these occasional free weekends.
Anyway, they've given me a password to use now, so I had better make good use of my remaining 15 hours.
Thanks to all who responded
Cheers
Kerry
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I take it all back - I still can't get into Ancestry without signing up.
I give up
Kerry
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I take it all back - I still can't get into Ancestry without signing up.
I give up
Kerry
This seems to work
From the link below you enter a First and Last name (could be your own but does not really matter) then select the Search Free button. A pop up window asks you to register, complete this and an email is sent to the email address you gave with a login and password.
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access)
It sounds like you have got to this stage so now you login (sign in) to Ancestry.co.uk. You can use the link on the email, it takes you to a page with subscription information, ignore this just look at the black strip across the top and select search and go for it.
You can also sign in by going to http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/) and signing in.
Any images of interest you find use the green button (top right) and select 'save to your computer' If a pop up asks about starting a tree, just delete the pop-up.
Andy
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Thanks again Andy. I got in, partly by your instruction, and the rest was a fluke.
Now I've just found another email from them with a username and password to use ::)
Oh well, I just keep searching now till they kick me out. Last time I was still retrieving information 15 hours after the cutoff time.
Cheers and thanks again
Kerry
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Hi Kerry
I'm glad you finally got in. I had a bit of a difficulty trying to work out how to access the free weekend as I have a subscription and when setting up a separate registration I had to check it hadn't defaulted to my subscription during the process.
You have got until 9.00am Australian Eastern Standard time tomorrow so you could get up early and do some more searching.
Just make sure that any images you have downloaded can be opened ok on your computer. If you use the green Save button and Save to Computer it should be fine but right-clicking on the image and selecting Save As may not work (it doesn't for me)
Andy
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Thanks again
Kerry
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Used the free weekend on Ancestry and I don't want to be ungrateful as I did manage to find things I needed free of charge. BUT. Each time I went into the site I seemed to get a different home screen, sometimes letting me in to the free weekend immediately, other times trying to get me to sign up for a free trial. I got an message telling me that some census screen views were blurred, meaning the the bit of information I wanted was illegible, I also got another message saying that part of the site would be down between certain hours. I tried to view BDM but wasn't allowed to free of charge and neither were the family trees. I tried to find a list of what the limitations were for the free weekend but couldn't see it, maybe just me. Yes they are running a buisness but surely a free weekend should be exactly what it says on the tin!
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Thank you for telling us about this free weekend, Jess5athome. I was able to find records for a few members of my family in both Scotland and England. I was about to buy a new subscription to ancestry when I read news of the freebie. I will still subscribe to ancestry but not until I have sorted the new records I found.
Regards, Nan
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If funds are limited, check out your local library to see if they offer free access at the library to Ancestry Library Edition
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I already have UK and Irish sub to Anc. But I wait with bated breath for another free access weekend to immigration records or Aus, NZ or US Canada records due to the several ancestor siblings and cousins who emigrated.
How do you get notified of free weekends to other Ancestry collections/ I have a UK sub but could do with some searching in Australia but never seem to be informed about free access.
Pheno
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How do you get notified of free weekends to other Ancestry collections/ I have a UK sub but could do with some searching in Australia but never seem to be informed about free access.
Pheno
If you would like any specific lookups just ask for help on the Australian board. There are some wonderful helpers there and many have access to records that are not online.
The Ancestry free access weekends I have seen advertised on TV. The FindMyPast £1 for a month membership I generally find out about via newsletters.
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I received an email declaring 'FREE ACCESS to New and Exclusive U.S. Wills and Probate Records'
http://www.ancestry.com/will-probate-records?o_xid=67096&o_lid=67096&o_sch=Email+-+Campaigns+
Or rather it was directed to my husband, who doesn't have a sub :-\
Not sure if it open to everyone, but worth a try.