The Lemon Fool

Ancestry is giving free access to the site for Commonwealth, UK and Ireland records over the Easter weekend. - although you have to register.

"Our Easter Free Access weekend is our biggest yet. For four full days from 30 March-2 April, you can search millions of UK, Ireland and Commonwealth records – all weekend and all for free†.
From Australia to Canada, this is the perfect opportunity to bring together your family from all over the Commonwealth."

Hope this is of use to somebody.

Chris

Note that one has to sign up giving card details and unless you remember to cancel, you will pay.

Activate your 14-day FREE trial
-------------------------------------you will be charged £69.99 unless you cancel your membership at least two days before your renewal date by visiting your My Account page or calling 0800 783 1340.

i have used their free trials in the past and cancelled without any problems.

sadly ancestry dont have the 1939 census which looks useful - only findmypast seem to have this.

supremetwo wrote:Note that one has to sign up giving card details and unless you remember to cancel, you will pay.

Activate your 14-day FREE trial
-------------------------------------you will be charged £69.99 unless you cancel your membership at least two days before your renewal date by visiting your My Account page or calling 0800 783 1340.

If you have prevoiusly registered with Ancestry, as I have, you can simply sign in to get the free access; you don't need to give any card details.

staffordian wrote:

supremetwo wrote:Note that one has to sign up giving card details and unless you remember to cancel, you will pay.

Activate your 14-day FREE trial
-------------------------------------you will be charged £69.99 unless you cancel your membership at least two days before your renewal date by visiting your My Account page or calling 0800 783 1340.

If you have prevoiusly registered with Ancestry, as I have, you can simply sign in to get the free access; you don't need to give any card details.

There seems to be a bit of confusion here -- in my reading if no-one else's!

Two different types of free access are being discussed in this thread:

1. Special free access weekends which are offered from time to time.
-These require no card, just registration. They are truly free.
-No cancellation is needed because the free access simply expires after a few days.
-The offer is open to all.

2. The on-going 14-day FREE trial offer.
-This is not 100% free because in consideration you have to give payment card details and agree to certain terms of the offer
-One such term is the requirement to actively cancel before the trial ends.
-I think this offer is only open to customers who have not had a recent subscription or used the 14-day offer.


Note that for the 14-day FREE trial the cancellation process is different to cancellation of a paid subscription: in the former case your access ends immediately on cancellation of the free trial; in the latter case your access continues after cancellation until the expiry of the period you have paid for.

Therefore if you use the 14-day trial, cancel at the last minute to use all 14 days. For subscriptions, cancel early in case you forget or something technical goes wrong.


GS

I remember in the late 00's many of these websites if not this one were free, I then checked out my rare surname, ship records, etc, and many took a ship to Hull in around 1912, train to Liverpool and off to NY, living as maids or carpenters in Minnesota or some such place, visiting Karelia every now and then and taking back relatives with them. Fascinating stuff, my uncle apparently is very up to date with all this family record keeping, going back to 1500's and russian serfs later on - perhaps that's why I hate them with venom. Well, I hate many other nations too, cultures, tribes and people - I don't discriminate in that sense.

Ancestry.co.uk is giving free access to military records over this weekend.

I have been particularly pleased because using this access I have now downloaded the Discharge Record for my Grandfather, information I had not been able to get from any other resource I had looked in.

He was injured in 1915, presumably convalesced in the UK, before returning to the front in April 1917, and was captured by the Germans about 3 weeks later, and spent the rest of the war in (what looks like from the writing) Limburg POW camp. Does anyone know if it is possible to get Red Cross or other info about the injuries and his time as a POW?

I have a subscription to Ancestry and would be happy to looking anything up for fellow fools.

MM