Family trees - Ancestry.co.uk

poidy · Nov 7, 2016

Has anyone else used this website to discover their family tree?

Be grateful to hear some feedback either for or against. Particularly the ease in which information can be obtained.

It is currently £19.99 a month which suggests to me this is not something you can just work on over the course of a few days. Would that be a fair assumption?

Other than going back as far as my late great grandparents, I know nothing about my family history. Be fascinating to find out more....

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Goldstone1976 · Nov 7, 2016

poidy said:
... suggests to me this is not something you can just work on over the course of a few days. Would that be a fair assumption? ...

Not used the site, but can confirm it's definitely not something that takes a few days. My uncle has been doing it for 40 years, and is still going. Bores the family rigid about it at family gatherings, but that says more about him and his inability to recognise that not all people feel the same passion for genealogy as he does than it does about most folk who research their family trees. Mind you, he's got back about 10 generations in one branch of the family - to a farrier in the Black Country.

Papa Lazarou · Nov 7, 2016

Goldstone1976 said:
Not used the site, but can confirm it's definitely not something that takes a few days. My uncle has been doing it for 40 years, and is still going. Bores the family rigid about it at family gatherings, but that says more about him and his inability to recognise that not all people feel the same passion for genealogy as he does than it does about most folk who research their family trees. Mind you, he's got back about 10 generations in one branch of the family - to a farrier in the Black Country.

I had some spare time some years back and went back about 7 generations in my Dad's family line. Used the free parts of ancestry, plus family search.org, which I think is something to do with the Mormon's and their quest to baptise everyone to get us all into heaven or something.

I also joined some of the message boards, and met some lovely people who had already researched parts of the family tree that sat alongside mine, so I have a lot of research in a file which shows family trees going back further, but we've yet to determine where the 2 trees meet (if indeed they do).

It's fascinating stuff. but as [MENTION=27447]Goldstone1976[/MENTION] says it takes up a lot of time.

Brovion · Nov 7, 2016

My wife did it for a couple of years with Ancestry, she stopped about three years ago. When she did it it was about £80 a year for the standard package, so either it's gone up massively or you're looking at some sort of premium package..

She quite enjoyed it, although it's apparently very easy to make assumptions about who is and isn't a relative and go down wrong trails. She never got much further back than great-grandparents with any certainty as trails go cold and it takes a lot of research, and by her own admission she was 'playing' with it as opposed to dedicating all her free time to it. What she found quite helpful was that I think there's a setting where you can make your research visible to others. More serious researchers would sometimes email her info about branches of her family and correct some wrong assumptions she'd made.

Stat Brother · Nov 7, 2016

Goldstone1976 said:
Not used the site, but can confirm it's definitely not something that takes a few days. My uncle has been doing it for 40 years, and is still going. Bores the family rigid about it at family gatherings, but that says more about him and his inability to recognise that not all people feel the same passion for genealogy as he does than it does about most folk who research their family trees. Mind you, he's got back about 10 generations in one branch of the family - to a farrier in the Black Country.

Oh contraire

We once signed up to this on a wet windy Sunday.

It turns out 6+ generations of of my paternal family lived in the same house in Warnham and worked as gardeners. :lol:

Someone once went rogue and moved to Hastings, but who gives a f*** about Hastings.

Half an hour later we were out walking the dogs. :lolol:

Buzzer · Nov 7, 2016

I did a bit of research into my dad's side of the family on Ancestry.co.uk. I went back as far as 200+ years and everyone seemed to be farm labourers from Patching and thereabouts. And on the basis that very few people either moved in or out of Sussex before the 1900s, I didn't see the point in going any further. It just confirmed really, what I already knew: I'm from Deep South Hillbilly white trash.

tronnogull · Nov 7, 2016

A couple of times a year Ancestry have free weekends which would let you try it out. Or, just get it for a month and see how you like it. It's pretty easy to navigate and a very interesting at first because, usually, there is a great deal of relatively easy searching. The annual censuses really help with getting back to the early 1800s but it can be much trickier after that. Before 1841 you probably need parish records. Ancestry and their competition, FindMyPast, have lots of this but not everything has been digitised. Also, Ancestry and FindMyPast do not have the same information. For my Devon ancestors I had to access FindMyPast because Ancestry didn't have the records.

Oh - Some libraries have subscriptions to both sites so you could also try this out that way if there is one close to you.

Thunder Bolt · Nov 7, 2016

My cousin had already done my mothers side of the family back to 1750 something, so I used a special offer trial month to look into my father's side. I found my grandmother's side quite easy, but my grandfather's tree proved a bit problematical.

All my mother's side are East Sussex and all my father's are West Sussex.

studio150 · Nov 7, 2016

Never seen the point of it myself, (I have no need to know whether a great great great great great grandfather was a serf or a knight) but my sister in law does and as others have said, you can usually make a quick start and find a lot out from not too long ago, but then it becomes a decision on how much time are you prepared to put into going back even further.

happypig · Nov 7, 2016

studio150 said:
Never seen the point of it myself.

Useful to know your roots especially if, after Brexit, you may be able to claim citizenship of another European country.

However a lot of info can be got from searching the (free) online census records.

Buzzer · Nov 7, 2016

And the award for most ridiculous/tenuous mention of Brexit in a thread goes to....

happypig said:
Useful to know your roots especially if, after Brexit, you may be able to claim citizenship of another European country.

However a lot of info can be got from searching the (free) online census records.

bardo · Nov 7, 2016

tronnogull said:
A couple of times a year Ancestry have free weekends which would let you try it out. Or, just get it for a month and see how you like it. It's pretty easy to navigate and a very interesting at first because, usually, there is a great deal of relatively easy searching. The annual censuses really help with getting back to the early 1800s but it can be much trickier after that. Before 1841 you probably need parish records. Ancestry and their competition, FindMyPast, have lots of this but not everything has been digitised. Also, Ancestry and FindMyPast do not have the same information. For my Devon ancestors I had to access FindMyPast because Ancestry didn't have the records.

Oh - Some libraries have subscriptions to both sites so you could also try this out that way if there is one close to you.

Yes the library subscription thing is good. My local library (Seaford) has it and it's useful for getting a look for free and seeing if you want to go further with it. My library only gives you an hour at a time on its PC's but going armed with a USB stick it's surprising how much you can download in the time.

CaptainDaveUK · Nov 7, 2016

Whatever site you use it takes a lot of effort, although a lot less than it used to when you would have had to physically go to libraries, churches etc. to find out new information. Family lines usually go back about 200 years max, then nearly all the records are missing UNLESS you are lucky and branch into a titled family, like a Lord, then the fun begins! My family tree goes back about seven generations of J. SHARPLES, but it then links to the Chethams, Geoffrry De Chetham circa 12th century, which leads to Queen Elizabeth II. My oldest recorded ancestor is Conan 1st of Brittany who is actually on the Bayeaux Tapestry and I can point him out and say I am one of his descendants! The main advantage of official sites is that you can link up with other people / share information then copy and paste lots of ancestors, you just need that one "common" ancestor.

dazzer6666 · Nov 7, 2016

CaptainDaveUK said:
Whatever site you use it takes a lot of effort, although a lot less than it used to when you would have had to physically go to libraries, churches etc. to find out new information. Family lines usually go back about 200 years max, then nearly all the records are missing UNLESS you are lucky and branch into a titled family, like a Lord, then the fun begins! My family tree goes back about seven generations of J. SHARPLES, but it then links to the Chethams, Geoffrry De Chetham circa 12th century, which leads to Queen Elizabeth II. My oldest recorded ancestor is Conan 1st of Brittany who is actually on the Bayeaux Tapestry and I can point him out and say I am one of his descendants! The main advantage of official sites is that you can link up with other people / share information then copy and paste lots of ancestors, you just need that one "common" ancestor.

All of my ancestors were common :laugh:

lawros left foot · Nov 7, 2016

My sister traced my Dads side back to 1579, all in Sussex, and the first ancestor was Thomas of Heathfield, he was to poor too even have a surname!! :ohmy:

cjd · Nov 7, 2016

Has been great fun for me over the last few years. Am amazed at how many of my 'strait-laced' uncles and aunts had to get married due to their babies being born just 6 months after getting married !

On a better note, I managed to find out I had 3 half brothers( one of whom had already died) and a half sister. One of my half brothers was on a plane from Canada, just 24 hours after making contact with him. Very emotional meeting in Yorkshire the next day.

An annual membership is much more cost effective, and you will find many other distant relatives cross referencing with you.

Steve351 · Nov 7, 2016

Have used Ancestry since it took over Family tree maker years ago. Have spent hours going through my family connections which now totals over 8500 people world wide.
But be careful not everything is what it seems ! always double check details as some people lead you up the garden path with the wrong facts and this can take hours to correct. I have tried loads of different software but always come back to Ancestry. Good luck have fun and you will learn a lot. !!

ATFC Seagull · Nov 7, 2016

Is it just British records or does it tie in with databases and census's etc overseas?

Jam The Man · Nov 7, 2016

I started to use the site but hit a brick wall in the mid 1800s.
Ended up writing my own life retro diary so my future great-grandchildren etc could have a read if they particularly wanted to find out about me. I'm up to about 120,000 words so far.

CaptainDaveUK · Nov 7, 2016

dazzer6666 said:
All of my ancestors were common

Haha, yes that's why I wrote common in inverted commas, they need to be anything but! I've heard Richard III has 100 million descendants, but unfortunately most of them are illegitimate! Not sure how true this is, but it is another thing that makes tracing your family tree difficult, to go a long way back the descendants all need to be a legit.

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