Ancestry.com

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
14,866
Location
Montgomery County PA
Display Name
Display name:
Adam Zucker
I've been intersted in researching my ancestry. Has anyone had any expereince with commercial programs such as Ancestry.com?
 
I've used that site for a number of years. Be careful, the information is not vetted and I have found logical conflicts that make me wonder about some people sometimes. How could the father have been born after the son??? But, there is a lot of good information to be mined, as well.
 
As Ghery posted, it can be useful, but not always accurate. My mother had some 25000+ entries in her records. She claimed that within the commercial programs data can be changed or entered inaccurately, information thereby jumbled. She would only accept "documented" data. How did she get it? The best source is at the Mormon Library in Salt Lake City, and she had been there many times. Other research was done in city halls, town offices, public libraries, personal visits to burial sites pertinent to the ancestry.

Ma used to say that the study of genealogy is a disease, once one gets into it. Also, she claimed to know more about her dead relatives than she did the live ones, and some pretty interesting information would often surface.

When information came from the above sources it was "On Record," not online because somebody wrote it as fact.

HR (who sat through many AZ to ME long telephone dissertations of "You won't believe what I dug up about - - - -."
 
Pmanton: Noting your Arizona location, my mother(referenced above) was in North Scottsdale from 1988 to 2005. With that in mind it was relatively easy for her to travel
to Salt Lake City and the Mormon Library where she developed many friendships with Library associates.

HR
 
Just curious. Why are the Mormoms (LDS) so into genealogy? There's got to be something it it for them.
 
It sounds like folks aren't too keen on Ancestry.com Are there anyother methods of researching ansecstry that aren't a full time occupation.
 
AdamZ said:
It sounds like folks aren't too keen on Ancestry.com Are there anyother methods of researching ansecstry that aren't a full time occupation.
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I didn't say that. I still use them. Just follow the wise advice from President Reagan, " Trust, but verify." :D
 
AdamZ said:
It sounds like folks aren't too keen on Ancestry.com Are there any other methods of researching ancestry that aren't a full time occupation.
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Ready access to fine libraries and/or historical societies in the areas of one's concern can be key. "Full time occupation" is an adequate reference. One should also maintain pockets full of change to cover the cost of copies being made from the micro-fiche(remember those?) instruments still in those facilities not yet updated in technology; and 213+ years of history records constitutes a lot of updating.

HR
 
Leslie's been using ancestry.com for a while, and I used it somewhat when I "had that disease." IIRC, you can get original source material through the site (scanned images of census roles, etc.) as well as the encoded data done by the WPA, ships logs, etc.
 
vontresc said:
Just curious. Why are the Mormoms (LDS) so into genealogy? There's got to be something it it for them.
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Aunt Peggy said it, baptisms for the dead. A very controversial program actually. To do this seems to take away the free will that Mormons also believe are important for people to make. Their come back is that many of these people never got the chance to make a choice so they are stuck in the ether somewhere. Hooey! I actually officially notified them to never to do this for me. I had a few steps to go through to get them to agree. They included dispatching official church leadership, not just the missionaries, to my house to make sure I understood the "eternal consequences" of my actions.
 
ScottM said:
Aunt Peggy said it, baptisms for the dead. A very controversial program actually. To do this seems to take away the free will that Mormons also believe are important for people to make. Their come back is that many of these people never got the chance to make a choice so they are stuck in the ether somewhere. Hooey! I actually officially notified them to never to do this for me. I had a few steps to go through to get them to agree. They included dispatching official church leadership, not just the missionaries, to my house to make sure I understood the "eternal consequences" of my actions.
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Oh man I would loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Migaldi household during that conversation.
 
Most of my ancestors were in schtetles being kicked around Eastern Europe from pogrom to pogrom. I don't feel a deep-seated need to pay anyone to find out about that.
 
pmanton said:
My wife is big on Ancestory.com. She has found scads of long lost cousins, and oodles of long dead ancestors.:D

Cheers:

Paul
N1431A
2AZ1
www.indianhillsairpark.com
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Any of them Nigerian princes? They've been trying to get in touch with me about some inheritance I've got coming...:D
 
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