Do all roads lead to one pay site?

[JillMD]

I suspect that searching with google will be more likely to take you to pay-to-view sites and the free ones may be further down the list.

One tip with the Ancestry library edition is that, rather than downloading to a USB stick, its possible to email yourself a copy of what you find.

Good advice - I'll start looking at page 2 and 3 of results to see if I can find the none-pay. I happy that most search engines now identify AD Results, I skip over those.  Not a fan of Google

[JillMD]

Does your local library have free access to Ancestry Library Edition?
Mine does - and I can get 2 hours computer access every day, free!

Can be very useful

I also take a USB stick, and download any screenshots onto that.
Then I have the pages I want at home.

There's a LDS library in the area, but so far I havent been able to marry up their limited hours with mine. I may take a vacation day to spend an afternoon there. I guess it would be a good idea to gather up all of the documents I'd like to search for there before I do that.  Thanks for the USB tip - I'll find out prior to going if that's something I can do there - I wouldnt have thought of that until it was too late!

[dobfarm]

I suspect that searching with google will be more likely to take you to pay-to-view sites and the free ones may be further down the list.

One tip with the Ancestry library edition is that, rather than downloading to a USB stick, its possible to email yourself a copy of what you find.

Good advice - I'll start looking at page 2 and 3 of results to see if I can find the none-pay. I happy that most search engines now identify AD Results, I skip over those.  Not a fan of Google

Last time I emailed Ancestry stuff from the library edition, got limited of only 5 things or emails I could send to my email address and so taking a UBS stick is best as long as you don't forget to remove it.

[a chesters]

When i went to the library, I emailed myself 14 records. They all came up on my email when I got home.

From the information alongside the emails:

How often will I get an email with the link to my Discovery Page?
    We don't want to clog your inbox with lots of emails, so we only send you an email with the link to your Discovery Page once every 12 hours when you are at the library searching for your ancestors.

    Simply refresh the page to see your latest finds. And you might want to bookmark your Discovery Page.

How long will I have access to these documents?
    You will have access to the last 300 documents that you saved to My Discoveries.

Hope it helps

AC

[KGarrad]

I suspect that searching with google will be more likely to take you to pay-to-view sites and the free ones may be further down the list.

One tip with the Ancestry library edition is that, rather than downloading to a USB stick, its possible to email yourself a copy of what you find.

Good advice - I'll start looking at page 2 and 3 of results to see if I can find the none-pay. I happy that most search engines now identify AD Results, I skip over those.  Not a fan of Google

Companies pay a lot of money "tweaking" their websites to ensure they finish high up on a Google search!
The IT guys have to understand the google search algorithms - and change keywords on their sites to fit

Is there no public library near you?
(There is no clue on your profile to suggest where you are?)
Many of them provide access to Ancestry (and more!).

[Blue70]

As others have said libraries sometimes provide free access to Ancestry and Find My Past. It's more convenient to have home use but it can save you money to move from home to library use. Particularly good for people who have researched for years and record finds have become few and far between. I use a USB to download records at my local library.


Blue

[CarolA3]

Check whether your library allows you to use a USB - they're strictly forbidden here in Western Australia.

However I've had no difficulty in emailing over 20 records to myself in one session.  Just get them all downloaded and renamed day by day, or you'll end up with more than 100 to do - I won't let that happen again

Carol

[shellyesq]

Regarding your bookmarks, sometimes library or government sites just update things and the same info was moved elsewhere on their site.  Trying Googling whatever site it was and it may pop up.  For more "homemade" sites, the Wayback Machine may show how the site looked in years past - https://archive.org/web/

What you are going to be able find for free depends on the state.  This site has lots of good links for vital records and other sources by state/county - http://deathindexes.com/sites.html  Some of it leads to pay sites, but much of it doesn't.

On some pay sites, you can see enough of a snippet from results to know if it has anything helpful.  Newspaper archives on Genealogy Bank and Newspapers.com are two examples of this.  I often find it helpful to Google (whatever city/town) newspaper archives, and it will give links if there is anything online.  Mentions in newspapers may help narrow down someone's date of death or show if they married.

[Erato]

Another list of online newspaper archives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives