Anyone used Ancestory website and find it useful?

[jpclarke]

Just curious if it is worth the money or is it mostly Americans on it looking for long lost relatives? Thanks

it does fascinate me. but with a name like SMITH yes I mean it i forsee a long long search

@ThatVividReader I also have a bigamous great-grandmother who did the same thing, although she had a child with her first husband who would have been my grandmother's half-brother and sadly I have never been able to find out what happened to him. He didn't stay with her, and he doesn't seem to have stayed with his father either, so I can only assume some sort of unofficial adoption. No death records.

I also have a relative who did go through a divorce in the 1870s - it was his wife who brought the petition and the details were awful: physical abuse, financial, verbal, screaming at her in front of the children etc. He even hit her in the stomach when she was pregnant. Thank God she had the means to be able to get away from him.

It’s incredible. You can practically see into your ancestors’ underwear drawers! The amount of information on there is staggering. The 1911 census has columns for health conditions, including mental health, and there are millions of military records containing info about them, if they fought in the wars. The 1921 census has more info than ever. (They are only released 100 later, so we’ll have to wait until 2031 for the 1931 census.)

100 percent worth it. Millions and millions of official records.

I found it out by trying to research non-existent divorce records then discovered from social historians how common bigamist marriages were in the working classes.

Apparently it was pretty much socially acceptable if you'd been separated for a number of years and particularly so if the original marriage had ended because of adultery, abandonment or abuse.

I guess it makes sense for the times when it was impossible for a working class person to get a divorce.

People just moved on and got married again.

There were no available records to prevent them doing so like nowadays

It depends. Common names are more difficult but the way the sites work, they give you hints of people who are likely to be your ancestors not just based on the name but other factors and you can work through them.

exactly the same thing happened to a friend of mine. I wonder if we know each other?

Sadly the 1931 census was destroyed in 1942 by a fire, there wasn't a 1941 census due to the war and the 1939 Register having just been done, so the next available census to be issued is 1951 in 2051!

Why would that mean you might know each other?

The 1939 register is available online.

Not sure if you were suggesting it wasn't? But it is.

No I wasn't suggesting that, sorry if my comment was confusing. Been accessing 1939 Register for years but just advising that there's no 1931 census.

Maybe, but it’s a lot more common than you might think. I’m in a Facebook group for people who’ve discovered a new parent via a DNA test and it’s got nearly 10,000 members

wow! That’s really shocking!

The 1939 register is available online.

Not sure if you were suggesting it wasn't? But it is.

Annoyingly only for England and wales.

For Scotland you have to apply for a specific persons record. You have to pay £15 and they refund £10 of that if they can't find the record. I've spent quite a bit so far on trying to find a family whose surname spelling entirely depends on the enumerator every time.

Northern Ireland also isn't online.

I'm doing a genealogy course and would suggest using some of the cheaper/free sites first before parting with cash or get free access for a week sometimes on offer.
Your local library will probably have access to many sites of interest for free some inc free access to sites and librarian are great at helping get you started.
There are the national archives (Kew) for England and Wales nationalarchive.gov.uk
for births, deaths, census recordsm, military links and much more.
Similar Scotlands People scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Ireland has Public record Office Northern Ireland PRONI.gov.uk
Also lots of local history/ family history sites. Try amilyhistoryfederation.com
Ancestry and Find my Past and many more are companies who make money from your search. (Some of the .gov charge you too)
It kinda depends on your level of interest and time.
I have many relatives called William Smith .....Google it aint!

Scotlandspeople.gov.uk is available online and you can view part info free and you sign up for credits and to look at a record online and download a PDF say a birth or marriage cert cost 6 credits and one credit is 25p.
You quote price for staff to search, print and send.
NI is also online PRONI.GOV.UK

There is also a 1931 census for Scotland and a 1926 Republic of Ireland census which is due for release April 2026.

Scotlandspeople.gov.uk is available online and you can view part info free and you sign up for credits and to look at a record online and download a PDF say a birth or marriage cert cost 6 credits and one credit is 25p.

You can't search the 1939 register for Scotland on Scotlands people.

You quote price for staff to search, print and send.

That's the only way to access the 1939 register for Scotland.

NI is also online PRONI.GOV.UK

Same for NI, the 1939 register isn't accessible online.

I have subscriptions to both Ancestry and Find My Past. I prefer FMP, it's much easier to navigate.

My SIL is on it. I’ve seen her click the ‘definitely a relative ‘ link even when she’s not sure. Thereby invalidating info for others! Put me off using it

it does fascinate me. but with a name like SMITH yes I mean it i forsee a long long search

One of my grandmothers had the maiden name Smith. All her brothers and uncles were called Tom, George, Harry etc and they all had sons called Tom, George and Harry and they all lived in the same small town, sometimes in the same street. Some of the cousins with the same name had wives with the same name. I've pretty much given up on them.

The best piece of advice I was ever given when I started was never to completely trust anyone else's trees because there are ancestor collectors who just click and add anything that remotely could be linked.

Both.

But don't do it for 'fun'.

It's not a good reason.

You need to understand what you might find out might also contain some not so good stuff. Only do it if you are genuinely interested in history and social history, rather than seeing what ethnicity etc you might be.

To do it properly is time-consuming and honestly gets expensive quite quickly. Doing it superficially you don't find out a lot.

Some of it also feels like an alternative to astrology if you aren't prepared to be arsed and delve into proper research. You need to understand contexts and wider events to really 'get it'.

I love it, but honestly I think there's a lot of people who end up with a lot more than they'd bargained for too.

Unless you are a Jones or an Owen from Wales, it's not necessarily the problem you think if you know how to research well.

Smith has never been much of an issue for me tbh.

I would be very cautious before you do a DNA test. If you have a very happy, nuclear family, I might even be inclined not to do one because if anything shocking is revealed, it’s highly unlikely to be a happy discovery.

I did not come from a happy or nuclear family so was fully prepared for secret siblings etc, but nothing immediately affecting me has popped up. I did find my father’s half siblings, which was interesting as I didn’t know they existed, and I now have a lovely email relationship with a paternal first cousin in Australia. I’m distantly related to lots of Americans and lots of Australians but have only had the occasional message querying something on my tree rather than anything dna related.

I have found that most people's trees are completely wrong. I verified my research by ordering death certificates through the GRO, and cross-referenced with census docs and other records such as marriage ones and electoral roll. They show who was present at the death, and that way you can see that you have the correct family, since you have two names in one doc. You could also do the same with marriage certs, which provide three names (bride, groom and his father) but I was tracing a health syndrome in our family, which is why I went for death certs. A pdf of each cert costs 8 pounds.