Which Family History Websites Do You Use?

I mainly use Ancestry at the moment because it does a lot of the work for you...BUT DO REMEMBER TO DOUBLE CHECK THE HINTS IT GIVES!!

I have published my tree to the web using Tribalpages, which is free for a small tree. You can simply upload a GED file you already have, add a few details to a home page and you have a professional looking website.

Over the years I have solved many family mysteries and disproved some old stories. I have come in contact with "cousins" and spent many an enjoyable hour scouring the web for more.

Just picked up on this, and although I am not doing family history tracing at the moment, I have looked on various sites, and on one occasion - can't remember which site I was working on, but looked at the tree which evidently contained some information about my husband's family, only to find that I was listed as his child! Got in touch with the originator, who thanked me, but again I think his tree had so many branches, he was just looking for anything associated with a name, rather than historical interest.

My subscription to Find my Past is coming up for renewal so maybe this is my chance to switch to Ancestry. I am debating what to do.
I have the Family Tree Maker programme which is meant to get you a discount for Ancestry but I can't find how to do it.
Has anyone else made the swap?
Also is it possible to keep you tree private and only let people you are connected with to view it? On one occasion my entire tree was lifted and copied by someone n USA I don't thin this person is related at all. He just wanted thousands of names in his tree!!

Mostly using Ancestry, which has been my main source, though the transcriptions can be a bit hilarious at times. Always look at the original documents, though these can be very hard work to decipher and don't necessarily trust what the enumerator has written. I have also used Curious Fox, though had very little feedback from there.
Recently I started looking at Ireland Reaching Out, which I think may be fairly new, haven't seen it in the past. I understand you have to pay to look at pages, though leaving messages is free, hoping someone will contact you. Having two Irish immigrant ancestors made it worth looking at. I knew the area of one family where their surname was quite common, but the other was simply from "Ireland". And only on one census. Elsewhere she is said to be from Durham. Just another of the joys of census research!
Someone from there kindly pointed me towards parish tithe records where you can see the name of the person paying - presumably the father - but if you don't know that it would be a long slog to trace all of those names to perhaps other family given names. And as ever the writing is rather difficult to make out.
I need to get back to Scotland's people now, as I've discovered that one of my Irish family names was originally Scottish. And another family is almost certainly Scots originally too but I need to get back before the earliest records of them in England.
I did find some families on Mormon records, though how accurate they are is anyone's guess.
I've done some hunting on Rootsweb too but following others' trees can sometimes be misleading, with false information. Always do your own checks. Even on Genes Reunited, where my tree is, I have had what I am convinced is wrong information from another researcher. It bore no relation to what I'd found. Names handed down through families is often a good clue to whether this is your family, though obviously not infallible. Certainly for me it was a big help.
FreeBMD can be useful. GENUKI is interesting. And very occasionally looking for a name on Google can produce something.

Appreciate any info. of Famous Uni Book Author .
Wrote Uni Maths Book , 1st Edition 1858.
Mainly Headmaster for years at Lincolnshire , England.
Not quite 1890 Crevice got him in Switzerland.
Appreciate any info. about him.
Name --- RICHARD DUNKLEY BEASLEY
B. 1830/1 MID ENGLAND NEARLY.
MANY THANKS ANY DETAILS ABOUT HIM + FAMILY

Thanks Elegran for the info that's exactly what I was after. Set out like that I can access all my old research and keep all sides of the family separate.

Also FlicketyB thanks for the link I can store all my old and precious data safely.

I am really looking forward to starting this again. Probably not such a good time with Christmas so close and family coming to stay but I am champing at the bit to dig out all my stuff again.

AllieOxen going to try RootsChat I've got stuff relating to Ireland, NewZealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa. Need to put it all together.

That's OK then.

I don't put old documents or photos in them, only copies for reference and displaying them to other people.

Elegran, do not use plastic or card stationery bought from Sraples or WH Smiths or anybody like that for storing precious documents and old photographs. There are chemicals in both the paper and cardboard that can iretrievable fade or rot your documents and photographs. They should be stored in comservation grade paper and plastics, like those used in museums. I get my conservation grade materials from a company called Secol http://www.secol.co.uk/. They are the biggest supplier in the country, although there are others. Unfortunately they are expensive, but at least the survival of your documents and photographs is assured.

Jendurham - RootsChat date photographs and did one of my ggrandfather as 1889, which enabled me to say it was taken for his father's funeral, when my ggrandfather came from Ireland to Lancashire and must have given them out, because one copy ended up in New Zealand!
Try them.

Elegran I know about this system but I wish I could cope with it! My brain doesn't seem to take to it. Every time I meet it I have to work it out again.

nanos8 The computer is good for a lot of genealogy stuff, but it does not file all the hard copy documents and certificates and bits of paper that accumulate.

As well as the computer, I bought a box of thin plastic folders with cut-off corners in four different see-through colours (from Staples, but other places have them) They hold copies of documents and facts about each pair of my ancestors. One folder is for each couple, and the colours show which line of my four grandparents' ancestors they follow.

They are filed in the order of the generations - so they start with a blue for my parents, then another blue for my paternal grandparents, and a yellow for my maternal GPs. Then there is another blue (parents of paternal GF), a green (parents of paternal GGM) a yellow (parents of maternal GF) and a pink (parents of maternal GM) and so on.

Each folder is named with the people in it, and numbered after a system invented by a German genealogist (of course) which numbers yourself as 1, your father as 2 and your mother 3. then your father's parents are 4 and 5, your mother's 6 and 7. Then your father's father is 8 and so on. Each father has a number exactly twice that of the child, so you see at a glance where they fit into the pattern.

Jendurham There are websites about dating old photographs which are very interesting. You go by fashions, the style of the background scenery, the name of the photographer if it is shown, and so on. There are also sites just about old professional photographers - the addresses of their studios and when they were in business, whether sons followed on from their fathers, that kind of thing, with examples of their work.

I can't remember the names of the sites, but a bit of Googling should find them, or they may be in Cyndi's List.

What a lot of useful stuff. I've been on Ancestry in the past and Genes for a short time but most of my research was whilst touring in a motorhome, and I have a lot of family papers death records etc going back three and four generations. It was hard to keep it all together and I finally stopped. Now we are back in bricks and mortor I'm thinking of starting up again. Apart from the good old computer, out of interest, how do others keep their records?

Re British Newspapers, I have used it a lot, but I get there free via my library card.
Amazing what I have got from the Dublin paper Freeman's Journal!

Is anyone by any chance on Ancestry24 for South Africa?

I have just been on Findmypast for a couple of hours.
They have the British Newspapers collection and it is very interesting and easy to use.

I have looked at Ancestry a few times recently and Findmypast, but I cannot get up any enthusiasm again since Ken died. I keep saying I'm going to do some, but then Gransnet appears.
One thing is that all the info on our family tree was stuff I would find out, but Ken would spend time putting it on the internet.
Anyone any ideas to help?

I'm another one on Ancestry - and have found it really useful., though I don't have the Full Internation Version.

For anything related to the USA, I go to my local library and log into my own account and do my research through their Library Version. I've managed to find the Passenger Lists showing the names of two g-g-aunts who emigrated as young women - along with pictures of the ships that they both sailed on. That then lead onto various USA Census Records that helped to fill in further details which linked to the 'present-day family' that I've been in touch with since my childhood. I've even been able to tell them things that THEY didn't even know .

For anybody who's considering taking up Family History Research - I'd give one piece of advice - Beware It Can Take Over Your Life ;)!!!!!!!!

Sometimes when I've been on Ancestry for a while, I find that I need to 'come back forwards' before I can leave the people of the past behind - bit like 'regression' (rolleyes emoticon).

After my mother died I was going through her papers and mementoes and found an autograph book of all the soldiers and airmen who had gone to her mother's house during the war. Her mother was a headmistress in a village school and lived in the school house. They had a piano, and my grandmother used to have singsongs for the forces in the evenings.
Another thing I found was a perpetual calendar in which my grandmother wrote all the births deaths and marriages of her family and friends.
I never met my grandmother - she died of breastcancer when I was 6 months old - but I wish I had known her. She sounds fun.
She also left a Daguerreotype which my mother thought must be of her grandmother, but it can't be because they went out in 1860, so it must be of my mother's great grandmother.
Does anyone know how to get a Daguerreotype dated?
I know I can sent it off to certain magazines, but it's the only one I have and do not want to risk it getting lost in the post.

im on ancestry too,,,,,,its great,,,,,,,im a member of caithness family history society too,,,,,,great ideah about the little book,

On FindmyPast you can search places which is very good.
One of the people I am looking for lived somewhere which keeps changing county, from Durham to Yorkshire and back again, depending on which year the census was, so it's easier to look at the village where she was born.

I started tracing my family on my fathers side, my maiden name was Downing and throughout my life I had been intrigued whether there was a link with the street of the same name.Imagine my delight when I linked directly to Baron George Downing 1st who built Downing Street ! My pride was short lived when he was described as a "rogue" ....the original rogue builder, the original building of No 10 was built using fake bricks....!!!

Now I am using Find my Past. I did a great deal of fam hist in about 1995 to 98. Before the stuff went on line.

This involved lots of time at local libraries and record offices. Between Liverpool, Cheshire and Leicester with a trip to Shrewsbury as well.
The LDS parish records were on microfiche and seemed easier to use than it is now on line. I am not sure if others find this.

The last two published census have helped me solve some puzzles about my fathers upbringing though.

In the end there is no real substitute for trawling relevant local record offices.
I am at the stage when hunting through them is the only real way of getting further back.

I use Ancestry and findmypast. Each has its problems.
One thing I have found out lately is that the govt. is trying to scrap the 2021 census because the 2011 cost so much. We kept our paper one for the family tree and filled it in online. The only reason the 2011 census cost so much is because they wanted too much information. Much of the information was DWP stuff, about work and disability.
The 1911 census is fantastic, becuase it was the first one filled in and signed by the head of each household, so you can actually see your ancestor's handwriting.
However, not everyone filled it in. Many women suffragettes refused until they were given the vote!
I think it's appalling that the govt. is trying to scrap the census. It would be much cheaper if they didn't print 32 pages for each household.
Calls for an epetition, I think. They are obviously not concerned about future genealogists.

Nana