Online commercial databases

[Harry Brewer]

Being fairly new to this lark, I am bemused at the number of online databases there are.

I would be grateful if someone could give an opinion as to the most helpful. (I am thinking of subscription here) such as A*******, The G**********, Find My P***, etc.

harry

[Mumsie2131]

Welcome to these wonderful pages.
I am not an expert but through reading pages on here from those who are Find my Past is reckoned to be the most accurate,

Don't overlook Free BMD and Family Search.

[kizmiaz]

I signed up for a 14 day trial of Ancestry, and started to rummage around with the Censuses and liked it so much I bought the company... erm, I mean I subscribed, but it felt like I'd bought the company!

Lots of useful info and a good online tree program, but pricey and not the best indexes (indices?) for the censuses (censi?) but I still like it

Findmypast is very useful for families who travel a lot, unlike mine.

Don't forget all the free stuff out there, especially familysearch and freebmd. And Rootschat as well

Glen

[LizzieW]

I like Findmypast, the transcriptions are much more accurate and if you find a mistake and let them know, they check it out and alter it almost straight away.  Ancestor takes longer to check the mistake and then only puts a sign by the name or whatever is wrong, to show there is an alternative.

Findmypast does not yet have all the censuses but it is getting there.  It has National Burial Index which Ancestry doesn't have.

I think there are pros and cons for both FindMyPast and Ancestry and I subscribe to both at the moment, although whenever I think of giving up on Ancestry, I find I need to search for something that isn't on FindMyPast yet.

Lizzie

modified ps.  On Ancestry you can only point out mistranscriptions of names, which is not helpful when I wanted to tell them they had mistranscribed as Staffordshire a birth place which was very clearly shown on the census as Suffolk.

[Willow 4873]

Hiya Harry

Welcome to Rootschat!

I use Ancestry though I sometimes swear about their transcribing and I'm thinking of subscribing to Findmypast too

There is a lot of free info too as others have pointed out such as FreeBMD Familysearch FreeCEN and FreeREG

Plus there is always us lot to help find that elusive ancestor 

Willow x

[nanny jan]

Hi Harry,

I noticed that one of your areas is Wiltshire;  are you aware that Wiltshire has an online parish clerk?  It is a volunteer site so worth checking at regular intervals and best of all it is free!


Nanny Jan

[Harry Brewer]

Thanks for your suggestions. No votes for "The Genealogist"?


Harry

[Christopher]

Hi Harry,

Subscription sites!

The LDS Family History Centres, Local Libraries, Public Record Offices and RootsChat get my vote.

Having said that I'm toying with the idea of subscribing to Emerald Ancestors so that I can get some replies to people with ancestors from the counties in the north of Ireland.

By the way I'd recommend a subscription to one of the Family History magazines as they contain great articles which are full of helpful information. 

Christopher 

[jorose]

I think it very much depends on what you're looking for. What time periods? Just UK, or are you trying to track (em/imm)igrant ancestors? What sort of budget? Yearly fee, or pay-as-you-go?

http://www.familyhistoryonline.net/ is one that's often overlooked, but very reasonable. It's based off transcriptions from various county FHS, so it very much depends on what you're looking for. (It seems they'll soon be transferring most of their records to findmypast, though...)

Remember to check with your local library - some have access to Ancestry Library Edition on their computers (my local does), so you can at least check it out before parting with your hard-earned cash.