Using Ancestry.com


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Disappointed, David, with the new 1939 Register records. VERY expensive and couldn't find records for my Grandparents until I put address details in - luckily I knew them, although lots of people wouldn't. My Dad should be on it as, although he was born after 1915 he died before 1991, which is when they say is the year up to which the register was updated with deaths, but he doesn't appear. Lots of transcription errors too

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I have just been to the new memorial on the enbankment and the workmen were brilliant one went to check if my grandfather was on and came back with it on his phone I would like to thank everyone who h

I did the 'spit in the tube' deal on Ancestry 2-3 years ago. You are always skeptical about these things, but hey ho, in for a penny....... i got back my results of where I came from and also close ma

Now, I'd have expected you to turn up some Tibetan relatives, Katyjay!

Thanks for that Dave @ #13. You have given me more info there than I had before. I assume the Prince I am half related to is not related to you .

In order, my Grandfather Florence Rose was born Florence Rose Cooper married John Henry Lakin Dec. 1915. She was widowed July 1916. Married Charles Stanley Prince senior 1916 or 17, Charles Stanley junior born 1917. She was widowed again 1918. She married my Fathers Father Edward Harvey in 1919. She was widowed again in 1942.

I don't have any of the addresses that you have given apart from 10 Derwent Street and that is on the 1911 census. That must have been her parents house.

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I use Ancestry regularly. Initially I bought my husband a family tree package that had a 4 month subscription with it and we kept this up. I use the basic membership and anything from probate, military or overseas records I find as much as I can then book in at our local library and use their edition for free. What I get from Ancestry I cross reference with Family Search (free) and various other local family history websites. One weekend Find my Past was free and I tried this but was not impressed. There are some transcription errors in Ancestry but the coverage of parish registers for West Yorkshire is good and you can search whole registers page by page. I have not published my family tree on Ancestry, but I have met up with some distant relatives that I have found.

I am a late night person and often find that it is the early hours of the morning and I am still on Ancestry or Nottstalgia! It is all very interesting and I am completely hooked on both.

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#16 BilboroughShirley

I use FTM and Ancestry and familysearch pretty much like yourself, it is time consuming. It is now 12.56 a.m. yet when I last looked 5 minutes ago it was 12.05.

I have published my tree on Ancestry but I know many people are reluctant to do this. No details of living persons are published so I can't see the problem but maybe I'm being naive. I am willing to be corrected.

If I see any transcription errors I normally correct them because it's bloody annoying when relatives just disappear from the records .

#11 NonnaB

From what you've done so far I'm sure you will soon have it in order.

If you need help in anyway let me know I might know the answer.

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Thanks Dave.I hope I don't have much problem in sorting things out. Its the time my instinct is to carry on looking and sorting in Ancestry but my conscience won't let me ,I have many other things to do. I am having trouble with one particular person. One tree that I have on my maternal grandmother goes back to 1793. The name is Hannah Trevellan / Trevellyan. I cannot get a hint that tallies. She was born in Cornwall or rather I presume she was as most of that side come from there. I've been given alternate names which tally but I'm not convinced. Her husbands name was / is quite common. Its about 2 yrs since I did any research so I really must go over it all again in all the ancestry web sites.

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Re the 1939 Register , thanks Ann for the reply and I agree stupidly expensive to search .

With all those protected entries the results may throw up more questions than answers .

Didn't realise that an army of clerks were updating these wartime records up until 1991 . How odd , wonder for what purpose ?

Explains why my wifes mum appears , even though she was born 1922 , she died in the 1970s.

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I suppose the records were being updated for NHS or pension purposes.

Looked at a few today at the National Archives. All of the people I found had died before 1991 but their records aren't annotated either, and found that more who were born after 1915 and died before 1991 are still closed, so doesn't look as though the updating was too thorough!

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Ann , just read of a way of not wasting money on fruitless searching on the 1939.

Put a search name in the opening page http://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register

After selecting the likely target press the preview button and look at the browser web address line . The end part should look something like this

6176b 020 36 (Mine has lots of % icons in between , ignore those if any )

Change the last number up or down by one i.e 35 to 36 and you can see who else is listed in the household .

Next go back to the opening page and click on advanced search .

Leave every box empty apart from the "piece number" and from the above example , enter 6176b in there . In the "item number" box , from the above example type in 020 and press search .

It should bring up a whole list of people on that road . Unfortunately it's in alphabetic order , so if there are people in the same house with different surnames , they won't be grouped together .

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I've tried Ancestry a few times both subscribed and free trial and it never got any further than the information I put in myself. I think the whole shemozzle is too expensive and doesn't work for everyone.

[Tad off topic] The '%' signs in the URL are added by your web browser in the place of a space because whoever or whatever created the link has put spaces in the link name, the internet/web servers can't handle spaces. A simple rule is "no spaces in URL names".

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  • 3 years later...

Ancestry must be down. I've been trying to open files but they don't appear. FTM at the moment is a nightmare. I have 5-6 different trees and I'm working on one particular one  or rather I was. Open FTM ok but choose file I want and it crashes. I've installed update , everything seems to be ok until I try to open this particular file, it crashes. Now trying to sync with Ancestry . I shall be mad if it doesn.'t sync. It only has one more item to analize so we shall see. Its taking ages. 

I have problems with birth dates for 2 brothers, my maternal grand father and his brother ( died at 11 yrs of age) They go from 1893 -1895.   Both are given 1895 for their dob but feel sure they weren' t  twins. I am reduced to certain dates Parents married  1891 and by 1904 the father had died. The only possibility is that they were born in the same year but different months. Dec and maybe January.

Can't find much info on the brother. I want to know which one was born first. I also use family search will try Find my Past for a change.

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Hello Nonna, I am a member on Ancestry. I only have the basic account but I just went on to my tree to see if it was working properly. I did a bit of delving and all is working OK for me. Guess what. There was a message waiting for me from someone who's Great Auntie turns out to be my Great Grandma. Small world Aye.

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Carni its amazing how many have got in touch with me because our families clash. Even a Cousin of my cousin got in touch because she's researching for my cousin. It is a small world

I've resolved the problem of my missing tree . Ancestry was working again so I down loaded it back.

Ps hope you're feeling well.

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  • 4 months later...

I did the 'spit in the tube' deal on Ancestry 2-3 years ago. You are always skeptical about these things, but hey ho, in for a penny....... i got back my results of where I came from and also close matches. A few months ago I found a cousin who's grandmother and mine were sisters. Funny thing about this one was, born in Chesterfield she now lives in Assisi, Italy as a Franciscan nun. We have been there twice over the years and could have passed her on the street! This week I have found a first cousin through the matches, who I have not seen since we were kids. I have been in touch with cousins further down the line also. The site works.

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When you get the results back from Ancestry, what exactly do you get ?   

 

Without knowing anything about it, I always assumed it would be a bit generalised and not all that useful for taking things any further.

 

 

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Kev, you get a detailed percentage of the regions your DNA is from, totalling 100%. I remember I had 63% from UK, 6% from Ireland, can't remember the rest but it included northern Europe, Iberia and Scandinavia. I just looked at my results again and it has been updated.  Now it is 81% England, Wales and Northern Europe. 12% Ireland and Scotland, and 7% Sweden. Ya. There also has a link to click on to view Matches. They are seperated into 1st Cousin, 2nd Cousin down to 4-6th Cousin possible matches. It gives the name/avatar of each person and confidence of match. You can click on a name and send a nessage through Ancestry. I give my contacts my email so we can correspond privately thereafter.

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How do you work out who your 1st, 2nd cousin etc. I have a job remembering who 'er indoors is and how she's related to me. B.

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42 minutes ago, katyjay said:

 You can click on a name and send a nessage through Ancestry. I give my contacts my email so we can correspond privately thereafter.

 

Does that mean you have to be a paid-up member of Ancestry ?

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