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Ancestry website query

procat,

when they say you have results and then when you go to next page and there are no results keep going back and trying again because it does come up eventually. very annoying but thats what is happening at the moment. funnily enough it only happens occasionally, not every time. it has only started occuring in the last month or so.
bren do we email them?
 
Bordesley exile, when you cancel your subscription, make sure it is within the date allowed, i had the subscription to the site, as i could'nt find what i was looking for i cancelled my account, that seemed to work, the following month, Ancestry took another payment, after complaining, they did refund that payment, but took another one the following month. I am still in contention with them over the last payment, this has gone on since September, they are no longer taking any payments but i have no proof of the original cancellation, do keep a copy of your cancellation e-mail. Regards Jackie
 
Thank you for the kind warning, Williams. I am waiting for certificates from Sandwell. I will then cancel my Ancestry membership & instruct my bank to cancel the DD so there is no room for error.
My last internet provider continued debiting my account after receiving my cancellation instructions & the matter is unresolved a year later so DD deletions are now routine.
 
has anyone noticed they seem to have changed ancestry again :redface:

you cant put age + or - in. and county you have to type in instead of having a option list.

the worst thing is the age though. how do we know the exact ages??
 
Hi Shera, I've just checked and I can put in the + or - for birth year, and I still see the drop down list of counties.
 
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thanks for replying di and mike. i cant believe that mine has changed then. it happened yesterday teatime. for instance, on the 1901 census the age just has a box, and underneath says..age on march 31st 1901.... and no option to put the plus or minus.

the only one with plus and minus on age is the 1881. even that one does not have the drop down menu for counties. hope its just a temporary thing while they are doing changes :shocked:
 
Hi Shera,

The whole look of my trees changed yesterday, but only for a short time. I know in the past I have worried, when all my pics have disappeared for a time.
Hope yours get back to normal soon. Sometimes I wish they would stop changing things.
As a p.s., I don't know if it is because it is now easier to add people in from another tree. But lately I have had so many of my photos copied and added to other trees. And, with a lot of them, I can't see how they are related. Someone has copied a whole page of my photos, including all my mothers and her Belgium ancestors. They have copied both sides, and it looks like, a long way back, someone in their tree has married a sister of my mom's great great etc. So they are not blood related to my mother at all. I can't understand why these people want so many photos and certificates of people that they are not related to. Very odd! Moan over.

Ann
 
Ancestry website query

I have been with Ancestry for a couple of years but this week I am unable to print off the info , the message comes up ... An Error Occured During this Operation... has anyone else come across this ? I have just email Ancestry to see if the problem is with them or me but It may be a while before they answer me.

Pat
 
jane k said:
I`m fairly new to `Ancestry` and probably being particularly thick but when I try to go directly to births, marriages or deaths and put in the relevant info I keep being told there are no matches found - even when I know for sure that there should be one. Any ideas? (I find their `help` section even more puzzling that the rest of the site!)

Jane
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Just using an old thread as a platform, I try to like Ancestry but I find that unless I have personal memory/knowledge of a person I am researching it's just a lucky guess which ancestors you follow up and you can go miles off track so easily, I am not unknown to flick to the FreeBMD site to verify information, which is so so much easier to use. I have received help in the past from forum members which has been reliable so it must be possible to be accurate but I recently couldn't decide if an intended ancestor was the the one from Glasgow or the one from Channel Isle, not much difference! Please, please advice before the laptop goes through the window. Is it particularly difficult as I am blessed with such common family names, eg. Williams, Bishop, Kirby.
 
I use Ancestry all the time. Yes, I dip into free bmd, family search and FMP sometimes as well as looking births and deaths up on GRO.
I like the fact it suggests links which other sites don't but I never automatically accept them as sometimes they are way off the mark.
I think you have to learn your way round the site and make it work for you.
With common names it can be hard but usually something comes up to help or you just accept someone will remain a mystery for now.
 
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Corroboration is the key when you are searching common surnames, my nan was a Smith which was tricky.

Once you get back to the census years there should be enough records to find the correct person in most cases. Church marriage records are also a great help as well when searching common names.

I'm not surprised with Williams but would be a little with Bishop & Kirby.
 
I should have said that applies mainly to people who were born/lived in England and Wales where there is a large selection of records readily available. For other areas, including Scotland and Ireland, it's not as easy.
 
I find the GRO site is good for births because you can use the mothers maiden name in the search box.
Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and send for certificates to confirm or otherwise family connections.
Scotlands People is a good site for researching Scottish heritage.
 
devonjim said:
Just using an old thread as a platform, I try to like Ancestry but I find that unless I have personal memory/knowledge of a person I am researching it's just a lucky guess which ancestors you follow up and you can go miles off track so easily, I am not unknown to flick to the FreeBMD site to verify information, which is so so much easier to use. I have received help in the past from forum members which has been reliable so it must be possible to be accurate but I recently couldn't decide if an intended ancestor was the the one from Glasgow or the one from Channel Isle, not much difference! Please, please advice before the laptop goes through the window. Is it particularly difficult as I am blessed with such common family names, eg. Williams, Bishop, Kirby.
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And were you able to decide if the ancestor was from Scotland or the Channel Islands?

Was it an Amelia Steel perhaps?
 
MWS said:
And were you able to decide if the ancestor was from Scotland or the Channel Islands?

Was it an Amelia Steel perhaps?
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That was a consideration but I favour Ann Steel but anyone previous to Janet While and William Kirby are very much fingers crossed! Thanks for your interest.
 
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Having just come back to using Ancestry I find that it's become a more money grabbing set up, most of the other sites seem to be linked to it in some way and each time they ask for another 'bite of the cherry' .
I got sent to newspapers.com from Ancestry where they asked for a sub then when I tried to buy it found it had the dreaded 'automatic renewal' condition on the sign up page.
 
devonjim said:
That was a consideration but I favour Ann Steel but anyone previous to Janet While and William Kirby are very much fingers crossed! Thanks for your interest.
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I hope you don't mind but I have had a bit of look, though I didn't have much to go on to begin with.

In regards Janet While, I think her parents were Thomas While b1825 Dudley and Elizabeth Plant b1829 Rowley Regis.
And William Kirby, I think his parents were George Kirby b1841 Knowle and Amelia Steel b1843 Jersey.

William and Janet's marriage record is available on Ancestry if you haven't already seen it, fathers; names are correct and it may contain other clues.
 
Eric Gibson said:
Having just come back to using Ancestry I find that it's become a more money grabbing set up, most of the other sites seem to be linked to it in some way and each time they ask for another 'bite of the cherry' .
I got sent to newspapers.com from Ancestry where they asked for a sub then when I tried to buy it found it had the dreaded 'automatic renewal' condition on the sign up page.
Click to expand...

The main genealogy sites do seem to like to spin bits off and then try and charge you for each one.

I have said before that it is possible to do your family tree without any subscriptions though it can be a bit more awkward. And using free weekends to resolve anything that is particularly tricky. There is also the library, where I assume you can still access Ancestry for free.
 
MWS said:
I hope you don't mind but I have had a bit of look, though I didn't have much to go on to begin with.

In regards Janet While, I think her parents were Thomas While b1825 Dudley and Elizabeth Plant b1829 Rowley Regis.
And William Kirby, I think his parents were George Kirby b1841 Knowle and Amelia Steel b1843 Jersey.

William and Janet's marriage record is available on Ancestry if you haven't already seen it, fathers; names are correct and it may contain other clues.
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I certainly don't mind, I've spent too many hours on Ancestry since your reply just looking at George Kirby and I am not usually obsessive, in fact "it's near enough" could be my epitaph. Still not sure!
 
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devonjim said:
I certainly don't mind, I've spent too many hours on Ancestry since your reply just looking at George Kirby and I am not usually obsessive, in fact "it's near enough" could be my epitaph. Still not sure!
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For some ancestors to be totally certain is impossible and it's a judgement call whether to accept them or not. In some ways it's better looking for reasons not to include them but even finding something that doesn't match is not always reason enough to discard them. Also eliminating other possibilities can help.

Returning to George, it is probable that he was only baptised in Knowle and was born in Bham which he lists as his birthplace on the censuses. On his probable baptism (father George) there is a note which says 'belonging to Bham', On his marriage to Amelia his father is also listed as George. This is also available on Ancestry so may give further clues.
 
MWS said:
The main genealogy sites do seem to like to spin bits off and then try and charge you for each one.

I have said before that it is possible to do your family tree without any subscriptions though it can be a bit more awkward. And using free weekends to resolve anything that is particularly tricky. There is also the library, where I assume you can still access Ancestry for free.
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....." There is also the library, where I assume you can still access Ancestry for free.".....
Do you know if the Library free access is all inclusive...i.e. world/papers etc.
 
Keith R said:
....." There is also the library, where I assume you can still access Ancestry for free.".....
Do you know if the Library free access is all inclusive...i.e. world/papers etc.
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It's a been a while since I've used it, so I couldn't say with any confidence. I doubt it would include newspapers or some military records because they've been moved to different websites.
 
its £19.99 for a months subs on ancestry for the world wide package...£13.99 a month if you dont require the world wide package i think this is pretty good as you can use it in the comfort of your own home and of course when you want 24/7 and its great for those who are disabled and cant get out so much

compere that to first finding a library thats open these days then you most likely have to book the internet..then the time it takes to get back and forth from the library then add on top of that (unless you have a bus pass) the cost of bus fares or petrol if driving i know which i prefer...

lyn
 
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Astoness said:
its £19.99 for a months subs on ancestry for the world wide package...£13.99 a month if you dont require the world wide package i think this is pretty good as you can use it in the comfort of your own home and of course when you want 24/7 and its great for those who are disabled and cant get out so much

compere that to first finding a library thats open these days then you most likely have to book the internet..then the time it takes to get back and forth from the library then add on top of that (unless you have a bus pass) the cost of bus fares or petrol if driving i know which i prefer...

lyn
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I have the £13.99 option but wondered if I saved up my Newspaper searches I could visit Main Library in Brum once a month if it allowed access.
 
Keith R said:
I have the £13.99 option but wondered if I saved up my Newspaper searches I could visit Main Library in Brum once a month if it allowed access.
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hi keith..i take it you mean visit the library to use them up once your subs has run out ? this is only a guess but i would say no..maybe someone else would know

lyn
 
I have no experience of using the ancestry newspapers, but they are an international (especially US) collection . They contain many national newspapers, but have much less coverage of the UK than the Newpaper archive , which is owned by FMP, but is available by subscription alone
 
Mis-transcription of facts causes me a bit of bother, at the top of my tree I have Peter Gibson, his wife Harriet Hurlstone comes up in various listings as Hasliston Hurliston and another I can't remember at the moment. :(
On another note I got a criminal record pop up for Martin Giblin who I think is my ma in law's granddad but I can't find it again and there's a doubt in my mind because he's listed as the father but my ma in law is listed with her mother's maiden name.
 
You always need to look at original documents if possible as transcribers only put what they think.
I have a great aunt transcribed as India when her name is Julia. Looking at the original I can see why someone put India but the rest of the family tell me it should be Julia. I corrected it.
 
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