Ancestry.com...worth it?

[cessna152towser]

if you don't keep paying for it, you lose your tree. Apparently it is on a proprietary format that can't be saved on your computer. So... even though she does very little with Ancestry anymore, we are still paying for it every year so she won't lose her tree.

I paid for several years then when I decided not to renew they said they would keep my tree and I would still have access to it.
That was two or three years ago now and I can still access it.
Ancestry continue to send me lots of "hints" but of course when I click on them I am taken to a link inviting me to rejoin as a paid member. I think their attitude has changed. Maybe at the beginning you would have lost your tree but nowadays you don't seem to lose it as they need the bait to hopefully sign you up again as a paying member.

[Mike S]

Be careful relying on the information posted there. Privately submitted family histories are often ripe with errors and inaccuracies. Several such submissions managed to absolutely butcher branches of my family tree with their incompetence, and now it has sadly been disseminated by dozens of unsuspecting and less than diligent researches within their collateral family trees.

[joylittle123]

Yes I do the same thing subscribe to ancestry during the winter months and between March & April I drop it again as you said Ancestry.com is pricey.

[jsimon208]

HI everyone. I know this thread has been dead for almost a year but I wanted to throw out some useful ideas that might help you get further in your searches and record verifications.

The first is to jump on the DNA bandwagon. I've met some people that are worried their DNA might not back up their paper genealogy. Well, that's nonsense. If you're following your paper trail you've got records to show immigration and births/deaths. The Ancestry.com DNA or 23andMe might not line up entirely but that isn't the useful part of it. It will show you matches of people in other family trees as well as your own that allow you to verify or rethink a certain line. The heritage aspect of Ancestry.com is in developement and gets better each year and you'll get revisions.

The second tip is still with the DNA tools. This one is GEDmatch.com! This little known tool allows you to download your raw dna data from whichever service you used and then upload it to the GEDmatch servers which are academic projects going on around the world. The wonderful part is that it is free! There is a huge learning curve but there are plenty of instructional videos on Youtube and blogs from professional genealogists on how to use this wonderful too.

With GEDmatch I was able to download both my raw DNA data and my ancestry.com's gedcom data and upload it to Gedmatch servers. It will help you line up more accurately (and more quickly) with other GEDcoms based on DNA. You'll get thousands of hits and they are automatically sorted by level of closeness along with contact details that are provided. I've met some cool family members that were 2nd cousins I had never even hard of before and we've worked together and found out trees intersect in various parts with other DNA matches.

I hope this short blurb has helped you.

[Tracy G]

Is it worth the money? Also, does it only really trace your ancestry in America unless you pay more to see foreign?

I've been using Ancestry.com for many many years and have found it enormously helpful. With that said, I live in the U.S. so it has helped me to find Scottish records that I might not otherwise have found. They have made some changes over the years which include saving your tree. I have an aunt that pays a monthly subscription fee (vs. an annual fee) and she stops and restarts her subscription from time to time as finances allow and her tree is now there awaiting her return, she just can't access it without a membership.

Ancestry also does a lot of work behind the scenes using different algorithms to find "hints" for you. For example I was researching a family member with the surname WALTER and was struggling to find what I needed. A few months later I received a hint that they found my ancestor who had been recorded as a WALKER. These hints are not always a match but often they are.

You can also access other people's family trees (if they choose to display them publicly, which most do.) It can be helpful if you don't know the parents of a certain ancestor. If someone else has them listed in their tree you can use that as a starting point. I wouldn't take their research as absolute, but it would give you something to research further.

The last thing I will add is that you can also find many records on www.familysearch.org for free. These are held at the Church of the latter day saints library in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. They have an extremely vast amount of Scottish records.
Happy Searching,
Tracy