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Ancestry... rubbish?

  • Thread starter Thread starter llamafarmer
  • Start date Start date
L

llamafarmer

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What do you lot think? I usually use ancestry and subscribe monthly... it appears to me that some kind hearted folk can find what theyre looking for with hardly any hassle yet i trawl through ancestry for hours knowing full well someone exists and ancestry says no one with supplied info found... is it a con or am i just using it wrong? It seemed to be ok before they changed it, now its just rubbish... any tips?
 
Hi I have an annual subscription because I find Ancestry so good. I don't think much about the new search facility so I always use the old search.

Suzanne
 
ditto suzanne. ancestry is miles better than other sites but i use the old search and be prepared for transcription errors. these occur on every site as it is often down to the poor handwriting on the original censuses.
 
Shera can I ask you what you think about this.

I have a marriage entry for a Thomas Smith 1893 Kings Norton. AMJ 6c 786
The Thomas I am after was married to a Marie(a) Sullivan.
The above entry only lists Thomas Smith, no others on page.
Any ideas why?

Cheers
Suzanne
 
It must be you.....I find it very easy to use,and now that they have transcribe all the births and marriage index from 1916 its even easier to find you ancesters....just waiting for the death index to be transcribed..then life will be even better....
 
smtr said:
I have a marriage entry for a Thomas Smith 1893 Kings Norton. AMJ 6c 786
The Thomas I am after was married to a Marie(a) Sullivan.
The above entry only lists Thomas Smith, no others on page.
Any ideas why?

Cheers
Suzanne
Click to expand...

the other person on AMJ 6c 786 must have had the reference number mistranscribed. You have to trudge through all the "Kings Norton AMJ 6c" list till you find who that chap was married to by the page 786 link - but there isn't a Sullivan amongst them, as far as I can see.
Some records are too badly damaged to read, so are not transcribed - that may be the case here.

I use Ancestry, FreeBMD, and the Birmingham electoral roll records where appropriate, with quite a lot of success, but sometimes sometimes trails do just run dry.
 
I agree with others - use the "Old Search" method.

I have done a search using the new method with no results yet the old one finds them.

And even though Ancestry can be a pain sometimes think how much worse off we would be without it and similar sites.
 
Looks like the "Old Search" is king, i have even sent a message off to Ancestry complaining about the "New Search", it is so inflexible. I liked the search before they altered it, going through qtr by qtr might have been a bit long winded but far better than having to rely on their search engine.

llamafarmer, are you using the general search box, if so, don't. I am sure you will find that most of us navigate to the collection to be searched and use the search facility within it. As for the info you supply, don't give it too much info, it gets confused, keep the info at first to a bare minimum and you will find you get more results. I think all of us have gone through the "trial and error" process with the various search engines on different sites, they all differ slightly but you do get the hang of it and as for records being mis-transcribed, yes it's a pain the the butt we have to live with.


bren
 
Just another very important point, in the search box make sure the "Exact Search" box is NOT ticked, don't know why they have it, it never finds anything


bren
 
I left Ancestry as the search engine was so poor & kept generating so many irrelevant records. The old search engine was better, but still unsatisfactory. No Lama farmer, it is certainly not you. There are other threads on Ancestry issues.
 
Just found my first mistake on Ancestry.
Checking a relative on Ancestry I saw my middle sons birth on the same page,I then checked for my eldest and could not find him,more searching found him with an 'N' in his name instead of 'M' mothers maiden name correct but apparently Birmingham is in Middlesex.
Looked at the GRO entry and it is perfectly correct.
The transcribers didn't have to cope with handwriting as in really old records because these are typewritten and still they got it wrong.
 
Beware the WW1 military information on Ancestry. Their indexes are simply riddled with errors. If you can't find your man by name, try searching using just his number, or place of residence ... anything. The worst thing (to me, anyway) is that they have scrwed up numbers and regiments.

If a man joined as 123 of the Warwicks and later became 678 of the Worcesters, chances are they have him as 123 of the Worcesters or 678 of the Warwicks. Makes searching unnecessarily difficult.
 
Having been a member of Ancestry for years, I've just cancelled my sub this evening as I'd had an email saying that my annual sub was due at the end of Aug & would be about £108?......oops, that's not on...cant justify that even if it does work out fairly cheap over the weeks per year. Maybe I'll rejoin later on in the year.:(
 
Hi llamafarmer I have just read your message of two weeks ago, I am like you just can't get on with Ancestry. I can't find lots of things, Shera is the best for looking up things. I must admit my computer isn't the fastest in the world and I do get frustrated, confused and stressed searching. Denise :confused::stressed:
 
Hi again, Does anyone know if you can print your whole tree from Ancestry and if so how, or is it just page by page. Any help or advice appreciated. :rolleyes: Denise
 
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