Is ancestry.com worth it?

-I've been thinking about getting a subscribtion to ancestry.com is it worth it and is all the information factual. I have french canadian , and irish ancestry, with one line was in america before atleast the 1750s. also will it have adoption records because my dad was adopted?If you are interested in an Ancestry.com membership to give you access to databases beyond the US databases (International subscription), hoping to find more French Canadian ancestor records in Quebec or Irish ancestor records in Ireland, then you may want to try a subscription for 1 mo. & research like crazy & then cancel the subscription after 1 mo. Or, you may not, after you read the challenges I outline below.



The challenges with researching French Canadian ancestry in Quebec include:

* language - How is your reading expertise of French? Plus, French Canadian French is more like the French spoken & written in the 17th century in the countryside than it is to present-day "Parisian" French learned in school.

* the handwritten script - If you can view an original record image, just deciphering the handwriting can be a challenge.

* spellings of last names - If census takers & other record keepers were not French speakers or if the individuals did not know how to spell their last names (or the census taker just didn't ask for spelling), it can be difficult to trace a family name/family line. I have found records for far too many people with "sound alike" surnames that I do know are the ones I am seeking or not.

* "dit" surnames - In Quebec there was a great tendency to give someone a nickname as a surname, a "dit" (called) name, with that "dit" name becoming the surname of record for the person and his/her family in later generations.



Example: A man, Jacques, with the surname Depaul lived near a lake. He became to be called "Du Lac" ("of the/near the lake") - Jacques Depaul dit Dulac. His son, Alphonse, took on the surname Dulac. Alphonse's son, Robert Dulac, had a farm near a marsh (marais) & his friends and neighbors started calling him Desmarais (he who lives by the marsh.) Robert's sons took on the surname Desmarais. One of Robert Dulac's sons, Pierre Desmarais, moved to a predominantly English speaking part of Ontario province. In the 1901 Ontario census, the census taker spelled the surname Desmarais as Damarry.



Other challenges with records from Quebec have to do with those who may have transcribed them. I have found far too many mistransrciptions from the original script when I have seen images of the original handwritten documents.



As for records from Ireland. there are not as many available through the Ancestry.com Irish databases as one would wish for a number of reasons. A lot of the records are church records. Roman Catholic records, birth/christening, marriage, & death/burial records are considered sacred by the church, with most not being made available to Ancestry.com, or made available on the web in any form. Also, at least my Irish ancestors had the tendency to name children the same given names as others in the family, with a lot of those children being born to parents who had the same given names and being born about the same time in the same location. Figuring out which "Jane Murphy" b. 1840, daughter of William and Ann Murphy in County Tyrone is _your_ "Jane Murphy," b.1840 daughter of one of 4 different sets of parents named William and Ann Murphy in the same village in County Tyrone may not be possible.



Although the 1st census in Ireland was taken in 1813, most of the Ireland census records were destroyed in a fire in 1922. The 1901 & 1911 census records are available electronically through the National Archives of Ireland as well as Ancestry.com. Access to the National Archives of Ireland databases is at no cost.



For my research, I have had better results using the National Archives of Ireland databases & posting questions on a variety of genealogy message boards for both counties in what is now Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland & message boards for surnames - Rootsweb.com, Genealogy.com and Rootschat.com.



If you do wish to subscribe to Ancestry.com, I recommend you choose the more expensive monthly subscription, do your Ancestry.com research like crazy for that one month, and then cancel the subscription if it does not prove all that helpful.



As others state in their good replies to you, there are other ways to conduct the research. I have both Quebec and Irish (Northern & what is now Republic of Ireland) ancestry. I know the challenges personally. Keep in mind that even if you could travel to locations to conduct the research by hand, going through one document at a time at a library, church, museum, archives or other repository, the language, the handwriting, the naming, etc. all may become brick walls for you.



Best wishesI would suggest learning about genealogy and how to evaluate sources and locate data. Then create as much of your family tree in a data base such as free PAF or RootsMagic Essentials. Enter all the data you already know and interview all living relatives.



Then use the free sites such as Family Search,and Archives Canada. CyndisList is an excellent source for free sites and links. When you have exhausted that, consider Ancestry but remember many Public Libraries have free access available.



As far as adoption records, Ancestry has none. Those would need to be gotten from the state or province where your father was born or adopted. The amount of information varies widely by community.



Ancestry has billions of records available. Finding them using their search engine can be problematic.
I think Ancestry.com is a valuable tool but right now most of my research is US based. For you to be able to access any Irish records, you would need to purchase the World Deluxe subscription which is more expensive but if you only subscribe to the US version you will be barred from any UK databases.



Also, the Ancestry free trial will not help you because that is the US version only and the Ancestry.com Library Edition available through public libraries is also US only, therefore, those options will not be useful to you in researching your Irish ancestry.



Your father鈥檚 information will not be on Ancestry.com or any other website, however, if he is deceased you can sign up on the 鈥榓doption reunited register鈥?for the state or county where the adoption took place and if his bio parents or siblings have signed the register stating their desire to be reunited then a meeting will be arranged. If your father is living, he will need to do this himself.



Most adoption records are sealed permanently; however, many states are relaxing their laws on sealed adoption records. Some states, such as Alaska, Alabama, Oregon, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, and Tennessee, allow birth certificates to be easily accessed by adult adoptees. Other states make birth certificates accessible to adoptees born before or after a certain year, while still others require a court order. So depending on what state the adoption took place in, you may be able to just request the records and send payment for the copies, others you may have to do a bit more to acquire the records.



Go here to see how your state handles adoption records:

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/l鈥?/a>
It is for you to decide if it is worth it or not...personally I wouldn't but that is me.



Is all the information factual NO, it is not, they do have records, but they also have collections, donations and they harvest information everyone puts on the 'tree' they so 'kindly' provide and then cite it as ancestry.com....it is ONE commercial company and there are many records on there that people pay for that you can get the same and better elsewhere for free, but if you want instant trees and don't care if they are right or not then fine, just remember one mistake, one wrong person and you are collecting unrelated names and unless you SEE a scanned copy of the original document/record then anything you get online needs checking back to the real records before you believe it...................



Your dad would need to get his adoption records opened, so they are very unlikely to be on ancestry and if your dad is still alive then they will not be on any website anyway......................
Ancestry.com does have a lot of records you are able to order. Beware of other peoples family trees. One mistake on their tree can cause you BIG problems on yours. One person had my great

great grandfather married to three different people which was not true. You can find websites that offer free information. Just take the time to research them and before you know it you will on your way.



Happy Hunting....
This is a "if" type question. In can be worth it, if your ancestors just happen to be in their data bases.



Ancestry.com does offer trial basis and is available in many public libraries so you can test drive it to get an idea. Or, you can just try a short subscription to see if it does you any good.
Ancestry.Com has a lot of original source records. That is why many of us find it valuable. However, you must distinguish between the records they have obtained and put online and their subscriber submitted family trees. Information in family trees on any website must be viewed cautiously. Even when you see the absolute same information on the same people from many different subscribers that doesn't mean the information is accurate. Too many people copy without verifying. Here is a video from You Tube that explains a lot about what you should be careful. She really hit the nail on the head. I definitely agree that their One World Tree program is trash.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6JLoXpwB鈥?/a>



When I go into their website after I click on Search, on the next page I click on Old Search which is toward the top on the right in very small letters. I feel with their Old Search I can get down to business and pick out specific records I want to check. I feel it is far more functional than their New Search which is prettier.



Another excellent website that has lots of records and are still uploading them is



https://www.familysearch.org/ It is free and once they are through very likely no other website will be able to touch it.
It may be worth it to you because your family has been in America for so long. It's not worth it to me because the family that I'm interested in has only been in the U.S. for about a hundred years and I have to sift through hundreds of records that aren't relevant to my research.
I don't have it...would if I could, however. I have numerous alternate sources, and find new ones every day.

Are "their" records factual? They are original, if you use the census and such. There are flaws with the originals even. Better than transcription.

I am in line with those who advise you to not RELY on anything user submitted. Are they all bad? No. It does take experience to spot those which are faulty.

Contrary as usual (call it Devil's advocate), I still will say that all research is not online.

After 2 days of radar spotting and Scotty wins idol, I keep it short. My email is open, btw, if you feel like it.