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Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

Genealogy, Local, General
langley59
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Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#96286

Postby langley59 » November 16th, 2017, 6:44 pm

I have a fair amount of information on both sides of my family tree back to GG grand parents with a few details missing. The information was obtained from a relative on each side of the family who has done their own research in the past plus some of my own research on Free BMD and the General Registry Office. I now have the time to start to verify details, fill in the gaps and carry on working backwards and am happy to sign up to a paid service, but which is the best one to opt for (Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, etc)? All my ancestors back to GG parents are England & Wales births as far as I know so no worldwide details are needed. Hoping that other lemon fools may be able to advise on this. Thank you.

staffordian
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#96302

Postby staffordian » November 16th, 2017, 7:36 pm

My money would be on Find My Past. It seems to me that their searches are better, Ancestry seems to always bring up thousands of barely related matches, though that might just be me not being selective enough.

I also find that Find My Past are better for parish records, but again, I may just be lucky in the counties I have searched on. for example Staffordshire and Lincolnshire seem well represented; not sure if it is the same across the board.

I have virtually no experience of My Heritage so can't comment on whether they provide a reasonable option.

In your position, I might be inclined to purchase a block of Pay as You Go units to each to get a feel for whether they cover what you need, though having said that, most of the sites allow you to search for free once signed up, even if you cannot then view the results. This should be enough to give you a flavour of how much help each one would be.

malkymoo
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#96558

Postby malkymoo » November 17th, 2017, 6:10 pm

Your local library may have a subscription to Ancestry or Find My Past, which can be accessed on the library computers.

Not as convenient as doing it at home, but it would give you feel for whether you might think it worth paying for.

Slarti
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#96971

Postby Slarti » November 19th, 2017, 6:36 pm

langley59 wrote:I have a fair amount of information on both sides of my family tree back to GG grand parents with a few details missing. The information was obtained from a relative on each side of the family who has done their own research in the past plus some of my own research on Free BMD and the General Registry Office. I now have the time to start to verify details, fill in the gaps and carry on working backwards and am happy to sign up to a paid service, but which is the best one to opt for (Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, etc)? All my ancestors back to GG parents are England & Wales births as far as I know so no worldwide details are needed. Hoping that other lemon fools may be able to advise on this. Thank you.


Before paying, investigate FreeBMD further as it has come on leaps and bounds, together with FreeReg for parish register transcripts and FreeCen for census transcripts.

I have both Ancestry and Find My Past and have found that some records are missing or badly transcribed on one but good on the other and vice versa.

Oh, and payments do need to be put towards certificates and register page copies as anything else is just the transcriber's opinion.


Slarti

langley59
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#97776

Postby langley59 » November 22nd, 2017, 11:05 am

Thanks all and especially for the tip about FreeReg and FreeCen which I was unaware of.

Nimrod103
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#103513

Postby Nimrod103 » December 11th, 2017, 10:50 pm

Sorry to have come to this thread quite late. I did a bit of family research several years ago, but now I have more time on my hands I was planning to go deeper. Thanks for the links to FreeReg and FreeBMD, but I have not really been able to add much to what I have already. I am particularly interested in getting access to parish registers for detail, and to continue my search before about 1800.

I have come across 'The Geneologist'. Has anybody used their databases? They would appear to be very extensive from the listings online.

Slarti
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Re: Best paid for source for UK ancestry details?

#103708

Postby Slarti » December 12th, 2017, 5:26 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:Sorry to have come to this thread quite late. I did a bit of family research several years ago, but now I have more time on my hands I was planning to go deeper. Thanks for the links to FreeReg and FreeBMD, but I have not really been able to add much to what I have already. I am particularly interested in getting access to parish registers for detail, and to continue my search before about 1800.

I have come across 'The Geneologist'. Has anybody used their databases? They would appear to be very extensive from the listings online.


If parishes are not on FreeReg then I usually find that the County Register Office is the only place with reliable details.

If you are lucky then the county that you want will have some form of digital access, like http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/ for Essex.
Unfortunately, these are often not cheap. With Seax I bought a day's access and then downloaded all of the parish registers for the parishes I am interested in, grabbing as fast as I could, and then looked at them later to see if I could find the people I was after. The looking took quite a few days, but as I was no longer online it didn't cost.

Other than that I have had holidays to the counties my ancestors came from and went to the record office there, having first checked on what I could do. So in Somerset, rather than print out the odd page or 2, at a cost, after finding my people, I used my mobile phone to photograph the microfilm reader screen and again grabbed all of the relevant registers.

Some places won't let you do that, but it is worth asking.

Oh, and I have no experience of 'The Geneologist'.

Slarti


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