Big Problem - signing in to Ancestry free access sites

[trish251]

Amazing then how after 20 years of searching I have never subscribed to an internet site.  How on earth have I managed?  I've only asked for a few lookups of census information recently.

Oh yes of course I got it free at my library or LDS centre(in England)

 But then I'm a poor pensioner.

Sylviaann

Hi Sylviann

My local LDS centre (in Australia) had the St Caths indexes on microfilm. I once spent about 3 hours looking for 1 family. Their name began with M & they were invariably at the end of each film. In 3 hours with manual wind/rewind I think I got through about 15 years. The films were shared between a couple of centres & if memory is correct it cost me $2.50 each time I used them - I certainly didn't object to paying the money to support the centre - but ancestry is definitely cheaper & somewhat faster      As with most things in my life - things change & eventually one embraces the technology

Trish

[Sylviaann]

Oh yes I'm sorry it will be cheaper in Australia then.

I went every week for about 7 years to my local LDS and yes the names are always at the end of the reel (microfilm here)

I did also manage to get back to 1670 by looking at the films of parish registers.  The BDM was free but the film cost a very small amount to hire.

Here in England we can also access BDM at our public libraries, free.

Of course it goes without saying that I started before anything was on the internet so there was no alternative.

Any BDM I want now I can get from Freebmd so I definately won't be subcribing to ancestry.  Everyone else is welcome to it.

Sylviaann

[pjaj]

I got my free 6 months subscription to Ancestry.co.uk through the purchase of the latest version of Family Tree Maker, and they work together pretty well. However I doubt that I will be renewing when it runs out - too expensive. The slight downside to the subscription is that it is only for the UK records, many of the US records are not included, but still shown, as locked, in the FTM search results. Fortunately for me I'm not interested in them.

Now, as the devil's advocate I will make a small defense of Ancestry.co.uk. If you go to the individual census year search pages (Ancestrry.co.uk/census > select a year) you can do wild card searches, even to the extent of getting EVERYONE (don't enter a name) in a parish / town or even county! (about 300,000 people in Essex in 1841 is a bit of overkill). I don't think this is possible on any other census site I've come across, but then I don't subscribe to any others.

[trish251]

Oh yes I'm sorry it will be cheaper in Australia then.

I went every week for about 7 years to my local LDS and yes the names are always at the end of the reel (microfilm here)

Sylviaann

For some years in the 1980/90s my Mum went every 2 weeks (I think her local centre was only open once a fortnight). They had some type of a computer she used to use & I remember she told me everything took such a long time because she kept forgetting to press the "return" key & just waited for something to happen    It wasn't until some years later that I benefited from her patience   

I doubt that all centres in Australia  charge in a similar fashion - and many did have fiche rather than film. It was probably a method for raising some much needed funds for more resources & as said I didn't mind paying. I do think it would have taken me forever to find all that I have found by using ancestry, so I don't complain about the subscription

Trish.

[prozac]

is ancestry charging to view bmds now aswell?   

[nanny jan]

Yes, apart from the partial free bmds.



Nanny Jan