Genealogy? Tips, advice?

[Bernadine]

I'd like to see what I can find out. Should I pay for access to sites? Is Ancestry the best? Any other tips or advice?

[verycontrary247]

My parents are really into geneology and they use Ancestry. Depending on what you're trying to do, you may not need a paid account.

ETA: like, they have free trials and whatnot. The best place to start is with yourself and immediate family. Make your own family tree and go from there.

[cuddlyevil]

Family search is quite good.

[Nonny]

Use your library. Lots of libraries have subscriptions to genealogy sites already (although I know with ours you have to be inside of a physical location to take advantage, they access via the web if you are off of their network is blocked). Our library also sometimes has classes on doing your searches - I don't know how good these are though; I've only promoted them, never attended one.

[georgeglass]

I did a genealogy project for my mom. I used Ancestry and our state library and was able to get back around 400 years. The Ancestry hints and documents were pretty incredible. My mom submitted it to the Jamestowne Society as she wanted to join and everything was approved by their genealogist.

ETA: All of my stuff was domestic US. It was around $20 a month. Once I was done, I downloaded everything and quit. International access was a bit higher.

[DesertMoon]

I used ancestry. I'm first generation on my dad's side we I didn't get far on his side. I got a lot on my mom's side and even took the DNA test for ethnicity and found relatives and got further. It's been fun. I also did a lot of it without a subscription..then I wanted one to view certain things so I paid the 13.99 for none month subscription. Then cancelled free I found it all.

[FastHands]

I will caution that if you want to curate a true 100% accurate tree, be very skeptical of "hints" and do your own research to back them up. Especially if you have a common name, you can end up making connections with zero basis in fact and then your tree is a hot mess. Now if you're just doing it for fun to see what the possibilities are, then go nuts. H got REALLY into this for a while, and had one tree where he accepted everything, and then another one that was sourced/verified. So if a hint checked out, he'd move it over, but not before. It was not an insignificant investment of time, and I'd often go to bed while he stayed up, as I called it, "hangin out with dead people." But he really enjoyed the final product and even the work to get there. I, however, don't have the patience for that kind of slogging.

[BlackCanary]

My aunt is insanely into genealogy, she mainly uses ancestory.com.

[pinkdutchtulips]

the LDS church as an AMAZING database that's open to the public. i know quite a few people who have used to when ancestry.com hits a dead end.

my uncle was able to unravel my dad's side of the family (paternal and some maternal) back to the 1100-1200's taking advantage of who knows what when he was stationed in Copenhagen. we found out that us vikings (northern german, dane and norwegian extraction) were a thread of a tartan scottish - go clan MacDougall !! my mom's family (her paternal mother's side) thx to her cousin was able to be unraveled to mid 1600's Austria using church records (the RCC and Lutheran church records)

[turnipthebeet]

Family Search is owned and operated by the LDS church. Ancestry.com is also affiliated with the LDS church, although they don't have direct ties (publicly). I'm pretty skeptical of giving data to either organizations, but I live and work in Utah, and probably bring biases into it.

[Captain Catnip]

My paternal grandmother pays for a subscription to ancestry.com and my aunt and I (mostly aunt) are building a tree. We knew some somewhat historical people on the one side already (Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one that comes to mind) that helped the search.

My mom's uncle has gone really far back (before the internet) on her side. He has gotten as far back as the 10th century. I have an abridged version of what he worked on, and my cousin and I add new additions to it.