Community Chat

[depglass]

My family came to a complete dead end when I did some research during a free trial period.  I did do the DNA test for the heck of it and it pretty much confirmed what countries I am from. 

[LIndaMJ]

I have had a subscription to Ancestry for the better part of 15 years. Because of this, I have found several cousins and we have shared information and pictures. And most important, because of the records on Ancestry, I found the document from the Navy required for my maternal grandfather to have a flag placed at his grave. 

[151949]

I love ancestry. In the summer when we are home in Pitts. my DH volunterrs for Find a grave.com to take pictures and add information to their site. Since find a grave and ancestry are connected we use both extensively. We have found the Mormon records to be the best, most accurate there are. I also spend a lot of time going through the Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh's site - they have extensive and very accurate records. Sadly, the church my Mom and her family - including me - grew up in had a terrible fire in 1969 that destroyed many generations of records there. Since the church had existed since before the revolutionary war. I wasn't able to find much info that was still available.

[Moonchilde]

While Ancestry gives you access to a very wide variety of sources, which is great, I want to add that I got all of my information, back to the 1500s on both sides, by using only the US Census and "hints" from other people's trees - you can add their information to your tree. IMO everyone should make their trees Public on the site - it's the best way to connect and share. I also posted in two surname forums and that's how I found unknown cousins. In both instances it too *years* for people to see & respond to my posts, so never give up hope. Of course, if you don't pay, you don't get all the site features.

I never minded paying when I was actively searching and accumulating data, but I think they should create a "maintenance" charge that is less $ than full site access - maybe only X searches per month or something. Now that my income is limited and I have most of the info I'm interested in, it isn't worth the monthly fee for me, month after month, when I might use it very sporadically.

[151949]

My subscription to ancestry is almost up but I am going to keep it going through the summer. We usually do the genelogy stuff in the summer when we are in Pitts. so I will use it then and cancel in Oct or Nov.  

We spend a tremendous amount of time trudging around cemetaries in the summers as people will write to my husband and ask him to go to cemetaries to look for someones grave and post it to find a  grave for them. We don't mind as long as it is fairly local. It's great exercise because in Pitts. most of the cemetaries are on huge hillsides and we really get our exercise looking for these graves. I think back in the old days they put cemetaries in places it was too steep to build houses, and if you have ever been to Pitts. you would know they build houses on some pretty steep mountainsides there. My DH & I tease that in actual fact if they dug up the hillside to find the graves they would probably find all the bodies had slid to the bottom of the hill and are all stacked there, gravity being what it is. Seriously, we do find many markers have slid off their foundations so we will go to the office and tell them it needs reset in place.

[Say Nay]

DNA ancestry tracing through some of the websites is not very accurate. Google for more info.

I've used Ancestry but only the trial. It was useful.

[Moonchilde]

I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of what DNA testing will reveal about them - what can be determined and what can only be guessed at and estimated based on the database.

People often feel their results are inaccurate because they don't know the history of the region and that the definition of countries and their borders has changed over the years. Also, if one is going by family stories to "verify" the accuracy, those stories are very often flat out wrong. And certain ethnicities, like Native American, cannot be tested for specifically.

There is a lot to genetic testing, and IMO one should read the fine print and the website's explanations of what one can and shouldn't realistically expect, before paying for testing.

[Mustang Shar]

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@deeva wrote:

My niece used Ancestry, the research turned up so much inaccurate information she cancelled her membership.

Plus Ancestry really pushes up selling.

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@deeva

How did that happen? The only inaccuracies I have come across are other people's Public Trees with no documented sources. They all use World Tree, they killed off my G.Grandfather 17 years early. All used the same source, not one documentation but MINE, death cert and census proving he was alive. 

Example, a cousin posted up wrong person as our G. Grandfather. No way was this man, ours. You can't document a marriage when it's clearly not him. Common sense and supporting documentation are all learning tools. 

Cruise the Member Trees, but get the supporting documentation so you have proper evidence.

Ancestry has great documents and accurate

[Irshgrl31201]

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@songbird wrote:

Nope.  Refuse to put money in the Mormon coffers.

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Do you do any type of genealogy at all? If so who do you use because as far as I know the Mormons kind of corner the market in the genealogy world so it makes it difficult to do it without their help since they were so good at documentation. They have the single largest database of the human race. 

[JustJazzmom]

Yes we use it. A cousin of DH posted a tin type photo of our great grandparents and I have to say we all saw the family resemblance in living members today.