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Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com

Discover your ancestors with the world's largest family history website.

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Great Way to Trace Back Your Family Tree!

  • Jan 25, 2010
  • by
Exclusive to the Lunch Network
Rating:
+3
About 4 years ago I decided I was going to research and trace back my family tree.  Instead of searching the internet for genealogy information, I decided to talk to the eldest person on my mom’s side, my grandma, and the eldest person on my father’s side, my uncle. Let’s just say I got a ton of great information, most of it I’ve found to be not true, but I ended up with files, papers and stories written on napkins. There was no order, no way of sifting through the information to draw out not only the true stories of my family but the genealogy as well.  That’s when I found Ancestry.com! At first I was hesitant. Seemed like a scam and the fact that I couldn’t even see what they had to offer unless I paid some form of a fee was crazy to me. I ended up giving in and found I had quite a pleasant experience.

The set up is really easy. I literally plugged in my name and date of birth and before I knew it the website already had information not only on my parents and grandparents, but records of my great-grandparents and great great-grandparents! I found myself being able to sit on Ancestry.com for hours on end going though war records, birth certificates and ship manifest from all around the world with ties back to my family. I was actually overwhelmed with the amount of information there was on my family. Eventually I was able to find a connection to another family tree out there in Ancestry.com cyber space and it was like the work was already done for me.

Some down sides I found with Ancestry.com were one, even though there is a lot of valuable information on the site, a lot of it is either the wrong person or some information contradicts itself. The second thing that was a bit much was the price. It’s not cheap but I felt that it was worth my money for this information. Lastly, when viewing your family tree I found it was kind of hard to navigate through it because you could only view a small amount of family members at a time. It would be better if you could view your entire family tree then zoom in and out as you please.

Over all my experience with Ancestry.com was pretty good. I was surprised at how much info I was able to find about our family that no one knew. I was even able to trace my mother’s side of the family back to the year 400AD! I think the best part was sending all the info to my grandma and seeing how happy she was. If you can fork up the money I highly recommend Ancestry.com.
Great Way to Trace Back Your Family Tree! Great Way to Trace Back Your Family Tree! Great Way to Trace Back Your Family Tree! Great Way to Trace Back Your Family Tree!

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February 28, 2010
You've got to pay to trace your ancestors? Wow!
 
January 26, 2010
Because much of the information is loaded by other uses, the contradictions are going to be there. I experienced the same thing. What I liked most was finding documents from my grandparents (great great) arrival in America. Chilling.
 
January 25, 2010
Great review. I found that if you collaborate with another family member such as a brother or sister, it can be cheaper. Another good site is RootsWeb.com. I could not trace much further than the 19th Century -- I would have to go to Greece or Ireland to trace further back!
 
January 25, 2010
Great review, Ryan! I'd love to hear those "not true" stories sometime. Must be pretty wacky :P This website sounds cool, but I think it's mostly only useful for the Western world right now. Time for me to get crackin' on finding a Chinese one, I guess. So what happens after you've created your family tree? Do you print it out, or can you email it to people? Sounds like a neat site anyhow. Thanks for sharing! :)
January 25, 2010
I just kept it online and printed it out, but I kept adding to it so it was constantly changing. I guess you can print it in a book or on a poster if you want too!!
January 25, 2010
Awesome!  I see possible scrapbooking in your future :P
January 25, 2010
HAHA Ya right! Never haha
January 26, 2010
Usually there are different print options for how you want a family tree printed. You can also save them as a file and mail them. There are some programs out there that you can merge the information with that will let you sort the information different ways and search it as well!
January 26, 2010
Ryan, there's nothing wrong with glue sticks, and a little bit of lace, stickers and glitter ;P

John, thanks for those tips!  My parents have been wanting to make a family tree of some sort.  Now I just have to find a way to do it in Chinese :)
February 28, 2010
I'm very pragmatic, Debbie! If someone in that 'tree' is going to leave me a big inheritance, I'll draw up the tree in no time, hehe... My mom did the tree but I'm really not interested in the past. I did accompany my parents to visit my dad's ancestors' hometown near to Zhuhai just 2 years ago! That small village is now a reasonably big city! 
 
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More Ancestry.com reviews
Quick Tip by . January 25, 2010
My wife is a geneologist and uses this site all the time. Lots of useful information here
see all Ancestry.com reviews (2)
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Ryan Weiss ()
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Follow Me On Twitter: @RyanWeiss   Read My Blog:Virtual Ryan      Born and raised in So Cal. Go Dodgers!!! I went to LMU and studied Business Admin/Marketing. I love Soccer … more
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Ancestry.com, Inc., formerly The Generations Network, is an Internet company based in Provo, Utah, USA, and the largest for-profit genealogy  company in the world. 

In addition to their main sites, Ancestry.com, Inc., operates FamilyHistory.com, which contains basic information for free, but mostly serves as a portal to Ancestry.com. They also publish Ancestry Magazine and formerly published Genealogical Computing. They have a presence in the United Kingdom under the name Ancestry.com Inc., whose offices are located in Hammersmith, London, England and Munich, Germany.
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