After spending an age and a wallet full of money, I’ve had a fair bit of success researching the family tree on the internet but in saying that, I’ve also wasted a lot of time and money with sites that offer but don’t deliver.
Now apparently there are relatives that came from Ireland. from what I can gather, a lot of records were destroyed but a lot weren’t – I find it odd that the records I need to look at seemingly don’t exist. Yet the records DO show up if you search for another name which makes me wonder whether or not the site in question is suspect.
UK census records are another story. People show up that match the search criteria but the info is sketchy e.g. my great grand dad was born in Ystradgynlais – his father, who knows as he doesn’t show up in BMD’s or censuses on first looking, you really have to dig to find!!
As for ratings of the sites I’ve used so far, I’ll give them something out of five.
Origins Network – 1.5 out of 5
Reason For Rating: Site ceases to function on a regular basis which means you seem to lose a lot of info if you haven’t previously saved plus it’s too expensive for what you can find.
Genes Re-United – 3.5 out of 5
Reason For Rating: Plenty of stuff here but lacks Irish records, and the fees are little high. You pay up front for membership then you have to buy credits to view census records etc.
Ancestry dot co dot uk – same as the previous except Irish records are apparently there, although I did do a free trial and saw a fair bit, I can’t at this stage see the value in paying another 22 bucks for a months access just in case (yes I’ve spent 5 times that in the last 2 weeks of searching).
FreeBMD – 5 out 5
Reason For Rating: Anything I can get for free I like 🙂
Onwards and upwards, more searching/researching and finger crossing.
