Ancestry.com...worth it?

[Lyle1]

I've used Ancestry.com for about seven years, and I am amazed by the number and types of records that are avialable. I have the international account, and I think it is well worth paying extra for access to records from countries outside of the United States of America.

Yes, the transcribers sometimes make mistakes when entering the information on into the searchable database and that does make it more difficult to find the record. However, unless the searcher specifically requests an exact match to his search strategy, the Ancestry search system returns the most likely relevant records first, and then presents records that are less likely to be what you hope to find. If you do find errors in the transcribed record, you can submit corrections, which will be evaluated and added to the record if found to be creditable.

Once you click on a link to a record, you will see a printed copy of what the transcriptionist reported, but many records also contain a link to a photograph of the record, which often contains more information than what the transcriptionist recorded. For example, some records record occupations and street addresses that are not not copied into the searchable database, but which can be quite helpful. Whether or not a photograph is included is at the discretion of the entity that holds the document. Photographs are not available for Scottish census records, but more information is included in the transcribed record than for US Census records for which photographs are available.

I have traced several lines on my family back hundreds of years, using Ancestry.com. Many records that I found were from churches, historical societies, and local government repositories in an area where I once lived before I knew I had ancestors who had lived there. I could have found some of the records by traveling around to where the records were held, but some records would not have been available to the public before Ancestry.com contracted to digitalize them.

The terms of use are very clearly presented on Ancestry.com, if take the time to read them. If you do not agree to the terms, don't subscribe to the service. I spent many years of experience searching online database systems before I retired, and I have some knowledge of what is involved in the construction of a database and how much it costs. I do not find Ancestry's terms or fees to be out of line; the yearly fees for many other database systems I have used often exceed $10,000. As someone has already stated, the Ancestry collects, houses, and makes the information available, but you must work to find the information and to determine if it really relates to your ancestors. You can choose to make your tree/s public, which allows other users to view them, or they can be private, which means that only users to whom you give access can view your tree/s.

Another nice feature of Ancestry.com is that you can make contact with other users, who might be willing to share information. I have made contact with several distant cousins who have been quite helpful. One recently shared information about an illegitimate birth in the 1870s (which other users pretended never happened) that proved that a strange old lady, who attended many family holiday functions when I was a child, was a 2nd cousin twice removed. That knowledge is not really very important, but I liked the lady, and knowing that there was a family connection is somehow comforting now that she is dead.

I download copies of my trees to a genealogical software package that is compatible with Ancestry.com, and I periodically run the update feature that downloads any information that I have added to my Ancestry.com tree/s since the last download.