New to tracing family history

[Horsemad]

If I buy a subscription to Ancestry will I see the same level of detail as I would on a birth/marriage/death cert?

Or would I be better purchasing the certs as I go along?

Any advice gratefully received, thanks!

Ancestry only has the Quarter and year of births/deaths/marriages.

They do have a lot of parish records and when these are available they will have the actual dates. More records come online all the time.

I started off buying the certificates for immediate family - grandparents/gt grandparents. For the period covered by the census you can sometimes get away without having to buy them; it really does depend on what dates/areas you are looking at.

The GRO also sells a PDF copy of birth and death (not marriage) which is cheaper than a certificate, and now their birth records from 1837 to 1911 include the mother's maiden name it is much easier to work out whether you have the right family.

Thanks Weasels, I think I'm going to have to buy certificates as I go.

It is well worth buying a subscription to Ancestry anyway if you can afford it (about £20 a month). This allows you to attach sources to each person, which is great several months down the line when you want to remind yourself where the information came from.

I would also highly recommend The British Newspaper Archive (about £80 a year). I found out some very interesting info, including that someone had fallen out of a window of my house and died while my great-grandparents lived there, various hobbies some of my relatives had which were reported in the papers, and background info on a couple of curious deaths.

No, as people have said it doesn't give you everything. Do try searching on Family Search too though, often the info on there can be better than Ancestry (and it's free).

And also depending on the area of the country, see if there are parish records online - for Lancashire for example these are a great resource.