Best Genealogy site?

square_bear

Hello
I'm considering starting a family tree and before I subscribe to a site wondered if anyone on here has experience of this kind of thing and which website/s are the best to use.
I know that my local library offers a free service but sometimes, dong research from home is more comfortable and suitable for me.

Thanks.

clairec79

I like ancestry - others prefer find my past

The census etc are on all of them, some have different parish records which you can only get from one or the other

WWW.FREEREG.ORG.UK has a lot of parish transcripts and is free

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp - for births, marriages and deaths - but will need to buy certifcates for all the info but will give mothers maiden names for births pre 1911 and age of death from 1837 on

rootschat - fabulous friendly site

Grumpelstiltskin

Don't jump into subscribing to any website.

You need to start with yourself and work backwards so start by asking older relatives for information.

BUT and I will repeat that BUT you will realise that without evidence you will find yourself on wild goose chases.

You know the story that great aunt Lucy worked at Buckingham Palace etc. etc. the big majority of these stories are not 100% true.

barbarawright

Ancestry and Find My Past both have the censuses and births, marriages and deaths. After they they have completely different datasets - Ancestry has a lot of overseas material for example while FMP has merchant navy records and more parish records. So you will probably want to use both

square_bear

Thanks for the information so far.

I'm looking for information of family (Jewish) in the London area from 1900-1950, if that helps.

TonyMMM

square_bear wrote: »

Thanks for the information so far.

I'm looking for information of family (Jewish) in the London area from 1900-1950, if that helps.

I would go for FindMyPast for that era purely because they have the 1939 Register which will be very useful. Ancestry has much better coverage of London parish records (but not really relevant for you if they are Jewish).

None of the major sites have much Jewish content on them as this is a more specialist area of research.

You might try: https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/UK/

clairec79

To be honest aside there isn't a huge amount of recent stuff available

Ancestry has the service records for WW1 (however quite a lot were destroyed in the bombing of WW2)

As someone said FindMyPast has the 1939 register.

TBH I'd sign up for the free fortnight for each - and see which I liked better

Grumpelstiltskin

1950's is very new in Family History terms, it falls in a period after the 1939 Register, the most up to date nationwide information that is online but before the rise of the internet.

All births, marriages and deaths in England or Wales will have been recorded on the Gov. index.


http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/ may be of help and the searchable https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate will give you anyone who left a will or went through probate but it does cost £10 to request a copy.

barbarawright

Ancestry has London phone books which might be useful. The 1939 register is very limited as it doesn't feature people who have been alive in the last 20 years (so it looks as if my grandfather lived alone when there were actually 6 people in the household). Both Ancestry and FMP have datasets of occupations - civil service records, railway workers etc so there might be something relevant.

Worth exploring the National Archives site as they have very useful guides to where to find special records (the actual records will probably not be available online). http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/jews-and-jewish-communities-18th-20th-centuries/

Also worth checking what newspapers archives your local library has access to. Or looking on the British Library site and maybe subscribing to their local newspaper archives. And the Jewish Chronicle has an online archive which you could take out a short subscription to

Soundgirlrocks

Grumpelstiltskin wrote: »

You know the story that great aunt Lucy worked at Buckingham Palace etc. etc. the big majority of these stories are not 100% true.

Recently had to break it to my Grandmother that the family story about the General who had his arm bitten off by a tiger in India wasn't in fact our General, just a coincident that they were both Major Generals who served in India with similar names.

I came to the conclusion that my late great grandmothers attempts and putting together a family tree in the 1960 has led to this being a well established "fact".

Uxb

If your family had unusual surnames or perhaps middle names that were carried through generations it is much much easier than for those with common names.

Trying to do genealogy in say South Wales with surnames like Jones, Lewis, Griffiths or Williams is next to impossible....there are just too many for example William Jones born to a family who mothers maiden name was Williams to find the right one easily.

Families who moved round typically with the railways can be hard to track when then had children in Slough, Swindon, South Wales, Gloucester as they moved round - this is a real example from my family as Great Western railway engineers.

I've found the "stories" often have a grain of truth to them, sometimes ascribed to wrong sides of the family, some exaggerated, some twisted round - but when you discover the facts you can see how they originated and then were "improved" in being passed down.

Good luck it will take you years....