Ancestry UK free trial

swingaloo

I asked about Ancestry Uk on here a while ago. Ive now taken the plunge and started the 14 day free trial.

However, using the searches is proving useless even with accurate information being entered.


Ive tried to find my birth, my mum and dads births and deaths, even the death of an aunt from 1935. Everything comes up as 'no records found'.

Is that common, is it me that's searching incorrectly or is it just the way the site is. If I cant find records of those I know I'm going to struggle to find any people I don't know from my family tree.

Ive read the help features on the site but they dont clarify anything.

Any tips from users please- I planned to give it a go and if I wasn't impressed then cancel in time not to be billed but up to now it seems useless.

TonyMMM

If they were born in England/Wales you should find them indexed in the GRO birth/marriage/death indexes, in the place the event occurred and the year and quarter in which it was registered. They are only indexes, you would still need to order a certificate (from GRO, not Ancestry) to get the full information.

Ancestry contains vast amounts of data and records, but you need to understand what they contain and how to search for them to make the best use of it - not as simple as the adverts try and make you believe.

Flugelhorn

I get plenty of info from Ancestry and can usually find people after a bit of hunting. You can DM me if you want and I'll have a look

PasturesNew

You're really using the wrong tool for the particular job I'm afraid.

For more recent people you'd be better off using the free resources of FamilySearch or simply FreeBMD.

Ancestry's strengths are in other searches that you do not appear to be doing yet.

For anything in the 20th century I'd use Familysearch and FreeBMD as my first point of call.

For wartime 1939 Register it's only on FindMyPast

For Censuses 1841-1911 I'd use Ancestry or FindMyPast - the two can yield different results. I'd also use FamilySearch for those.

After that it's parish registers, so I'd see if the county had an Online Parish Clerk (OPC) and I'd check if Findmypast or Ancestry had the original parish registers or transcriptions of them. Results vary county by county. I'd also use Familysearch.

I'd use Ancestry to search trees to see if they can give any clues as to whether/where people might've married/died, to see if I need to expand my search and where to ....

After that I'd use local online archive search engines to see if I can spot anything "unusual" - and I'd check out newspapers (Findmypast) .... and then go back to the other sites to try to plump out the tree if I discover new information/facts in there.

trailingspouse

Ditto - I've been using it for 15+ years without issue.

It could be that the names you are using aren't quite right (eg 'Catherine' rather than 'Kathryn'), the date of birth/date of death aren't quite right (try using the drop down function when you put in a date, and look for +/- 1 year).

Or possibly, if the names are quite common, too many possible results are returned (eg searching for 'John Smith' born 'London') - you would need to refine your search to includes, say, a middle name, or a year of birth, or a more specific birth place.

It's also possible that the records have been mistranscribed. For example, some of my relatives had the surname 'Flint', but that is often transcribed as 'Hunt'. If you can view the original you can often see that the name was correct on the original.

And as Pastures New says, more recent info isn't available on Ancestry - but you can see marriages in England up to 2005, deaths to 2015.

Finally - if your relatives were based in Scotland, you won't get much joy from Ancestry - they have a few records, but Scotland's People is the place to go.

But basically you shouldn't be having any great difficulty if you are putting in the correct information.

I'd be happy to take a look if you want to PM me.

badmemory

swingaloo wrote: »

I asked about Ancestry Uk on here a while ago. Ive now taken the plunge and started the 14 day free trial.

However, using the searches is proving useless even with accurate information being entered.


Ive tried to find my birth, my mum and dads births and deaths, even the death of an aunt from 1935. Everything comes up as 'no records found'.

Is that common, is it me that's searching incorrectly or is it just the way the site is. If I cant find records of those I know I'm going to struggle to find any people I don't know from my family tree.

Ive read the help features on the site but they dont clarify anything.

Any tips from users please- I planned to give it a go and if I wasn't impressed then cancel in time not to be billed but up to now it seems useless.

My problem was the opposite to your's (possibly because I only need to start further back) I got so much info showing that I can't see the wood for the trees!

Grumpelstiltskin

The knack with Ancestry is not to put too much information in your search.

Again assuming you are looking in England or Wales then get your birth certificate in front of you and start entering information such as Christian and surnames, year and registration district and see what you can find.

As others have said if you are looking for Scotland or Northern Ireland then Ancestry is no use.

clairec79

I'd say it's you and the way you are searching - because I've never had a problem with it - births you can get up to 2007 (free bmd only do up to the early 1980s I believe)

Freereg is also good for free parish searches

TheMsTeal

I am slightly dubious about the site; I changed my surname to something (slightly) unusual, for a laugh I decided to check it out on that website; lo and behold they came up with ONE person (there would have to be more than one!) from the "18th century" with the exact same surname. Looks like a way of making you sign up.

And before I get my knuckles rapped, I know this is an old thread!!

Mojisola

TheMsTeal wrote: »

I am slightly dubious about the site; I changed my surname to something (slightly) unusual, for a laugh I decided to check it out on that website; lo and behold they came up with ONE person (there would have to be more than one!) from the "18th century" with the exact same surname. Looks like a way of making you sign up.

Not if the name that matches your made-up name is a mistranscription - I've found strange transcriptions of my family names - transcribers have to write what they can see and old handwriting styles are sometimes difficult to interpret.

TheMsTeal

Mojisola wrote: »

Not if the name that matches your made-up name is a mistranscription - I've found strange transcriptions of my family names - transcribers have to write what they can see and old handwriting styles are sometimes difficult to interpret.

Maybe, but I still find it strange there would be only one person mentioned. Perhaps I'm just being too cynical!:)