Big Problem - signing in to Ancestry free access sites

[trish251]

Ah but surely Ancestry's answer to this dilemma is.......just spend a lot of your hard earned on a subscription!  Ancestry should have their philosophy at the top of every page

We are here to help you, with our accurate transcriptions and our focus on what you the mug..ahem consumer needs, and sod anyone who cannot afford it. 

Hi MP

Many of us do have a subscription & think it is good value. Most hobbies have a cost associated with them & family history is no exception. I have found a sub to ancestry one of my best value expenses. I have had it for 2 years, will probably take 1 more year & then stop.

Sadly for many researchers Ancestry have decided to remove free access to most of their data. As a business they would obviously prefer folks to pay. Other sites with the bdm images (e.g. findmypast - or whatever its new name is) have been charging to access the images for years.

When the new online indexes from GRO are available next year, we shall see if the govt has decided to make them free or charge

Trish

[madpants]

Hi Trish
Ancestry may be good value but it is still expensive when you don't have the cash.  I'm not objecting to paying for what (in the 2 years I've been at this) I've always had to pay for but what annoys me is the greed aspect of restricting the BMD's.   At their usual rate of 1 credit per view it's not worth a pay per view 12 for £7 or whatever it is which is how I usually do it.

 If I wanted to find the birth of say....Sarah Smith in approx 1865 I'd have to look a couple of years either side, so at the minimum that's 20 credits and no guarantee you've even found the right one for the vast amount of money it just cost, it's not as if they find the answers for you, you still have to trawl through them.   

I'll stick to freeBMD from now on, Ancestry's greed has really made me cross.

[trish251]

if I wanted to find the birth of say....Sarah Smith in approx 1865 I'd have to look a couple of years either side, so at the minimum that's 20 credits and no guarantee you've even found the right one for the vast amount of money it just cost, it's not as if they find the answers for you, you still have to trawl through them.   

I used to have to search for this on microfilm at the LDS Centre - that did take hours and hours. Each quarter was about 6 films.

I paid alot of money to another site in the past for an online pay as you go type of search & will not use the site now. If you have a subscription you can search as many times as you like for no extra charge. I agree, everything is expensive, you are not obligated to use it, but no-one is obligated to provide it for free (except RootsChat - everything here is free      )

Try the site mentioned by Simon - it appears to be  cheaper, based on the annual fee & seems to provide almost as much as Ancestry (if you don't have Scottish folks) - but I haven't yet used it, so don't know anything other than what Simon has said.

FreeBDM is wonderful & will eventually have all the records but at the minute is only useful to c. 1920


Trish

[andycand]

Hi
Censuses are not yet available on Familyrelatives.com I'll be interested to see what their subscription is when they are.
Andy

[JAP]

Well, I'm the goof who started this thread!  And my query has now ceased to be relevant given Ancestry's "greed".  Incidentally, to whose who answered earlier, yes of course I tried (several times) the 'forgot password' facility - no answer/deathly silence was the stern reply.  And I was about to try some made-up email addy when the guillotine struck.

Something I do wonder is why ancestry.co.uk started off providing the England & Wales BDMs for free ...

I'd always assumed that it was because they weren't allowed to 'sell' the public GRO Indexes - but apparently not

JAP

[SeaThreePeeO]

Firstly I am sorry if this post is in the wrong section and I apologise.

But I am having a problem with Ancestry.co.uk and the supposed Free BMD.  I am registered with Ancestry and logged in, but it will not allow me to view the BMD unless I pay.  Now it has never done this before and I was infact viewing the BMD without problem this morning.

Has anyone else experiencing the same and will I know have to pay to look up BMD indexes?

Moderator comment: topics merged

[PaulineJ]

Yes there are problems. i'll just look for the previous posts on this very thing.

Pauline

[celia]

I still think
http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/nameindex/products.php
is the best value

Celia

[Necromancer]

Hope you dont do any lookups from their databases - they rigorously enforce their T's & C's .....

bemused how the word greed can really be applied to this topic .....