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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: BrownEyedGirl on Thursday 15 July 21 11:49 BST (UK)
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As a newbie, considering which of the many sites geared up for this sort of research would be the best one to join.
Not just on price - I would imagine the cheaper ones don't have access to vital information.
Which are the best value? That is, the best range and quality of information for the best price?
Interested in recommendations.
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Welcome,
In my opinion, the best site is RootChat.
Why?
:) Well it's here to help,
:) it's open 2 4/7
:) it's global and local all at the same time
JM in New South Wales, Australia where it's 2.55 a.m. and we are awake waiting on a phone call from a family member who lives in France.
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"I would imagine the cheaper ones don't have access to vital information"
Not necessarily. If you're looking for US records, FamilySearch has a lot and it's free.
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Are you doing any research in Ireland?
Irishgenealogy is free for BMD records.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp
....and GRONI for NI has only a charge of £2.50 to view each birth, marriage and death record (back to 1845/1864).
https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk/
KG
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Really depends on what you are looking for, where and when. There are lots of links to resources on the boards here on Rootschat which are usually at the top of the relevant board. For example, here's the USA board-
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/usa/
and here's the Resources at the top of the page-
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/us-resources-offers/
If if it U.S. information you are looking for then Family Search, mentioned earlier, it the best place to start.
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The best value site is the one that has the records you want.
There are plenty of free sites, there's Rootschat and your library may have free access to the big subscription sites for their members.
If you want to subscribe yourself then it's worth doing your homework to see their coverage of records.
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Some English counties have an OPC site which can have a variety of records, not just Parish Registers.
Volunteer based and all free!
Here's the Dorset one: https://opcdorset.org Scroll down for links to other counties.
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Check with your local library.
I have Find My Past and Ancestry.com free from my library at the moment to use at home.
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Thanks to all responders so far - just started on my journey and there's some good advice from old hands up there - many thanks :-)
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Subscription sites usually have free trials. Take advantage of those to try them out before deciding whether to pay to join one.
As others have said, you can find out a lot of stuff for free so get to know free sources first.
Membership of a local family history society, either in the area where you live or one where some of your ancestors came from is usually cheap. Some have online forums or FB groups. Some have volunteer-compiled records accessible to members. There may be other members researching the same surname in that area.
There are also specialist FH societies and groups e.g. Jewish, Catholic, Quaker, Travellers, Polish, Italian.