Is my pekin bantam male or female?

[quickcluck]

Hi guys....

 

Does anyone have experience of embarking on a project like this? I think I'd like to start my mum off with something for her birthday.

 

There are lots of online sites, I wonder if anyone has used them successfully?

 

Thanks

 

Kay

[Lydia]

Ancestry.co.uk is fantastic in my opinion and well worth the money. I've been using it since Jan and have traced my lot back to c1570s and hubby's back to c1780s. It's, clear, very easy to use and has terrific customer service.

 

I also use findmypast.co.uk which is often better at finding marriages, baptisms etc because they have linked up with many family history societies. However the search function is a bit cumbersome and not terribly well sorted and the site often goes offline. Their customer service is rubbish too - "Ooops, word censored!"ody answers the phone, ever! I'm not sure I'll renew my subscription with them.

 

With Ancestry you have to sign up for a subscription. I took a year for the UK/Irish option only (excluding overseas records, although they do come up in searches, you just can't view them). It's worked for me because I don't have a great deal of overseas ancestors. It's about £50 more to include the overseas searches for a year, I think.

 

Findmypast doesn't include Irish records in its Uk package so I paid for the overseas option here. It's not been worth it at all and I've found nothing. Findmypast does have a pay as you go option, as well as a subscription one, so you don't have to be locked in. This could work out very expensive though because you have to pay to see each record and it might not be the correct one, especially if you are researching a common surname.

 

I attended a Who Do You Think You Are expo in London earlier this year which had a comparison chart of all these sites and what they offered. Ancestry and Findmypast were the two that provided the most for your money.

 

The family tree builder is better on Ancestry than Findmypast and their hint system is good to get you started. Not surprisingly the records are better in the more recent past and you may find you need other help for stuff before about 1750. This is where time, Google and your local family history society come in.

 

I find doing my family tree enormously addictive and very rewarding. It's easy to get sucked in and it's easy to make mistakes and you to check and verify what the searches on any site give you. Sometimes you also just have to take a punt and follow a line, even though it may ultimately turn out to be someone else's ancestors and you end up deleting it. I find I have to do it for just a short while because (a) no housework or anything else gets done, and (b) you start getting carried away and confused with maiden names and married names and start following the wrong line. I find I have to leave a line of enquiry alone for a while then go back to it fresh sometimes. A few times I've found mistakes this way.

 

Good luck if you choose to do it. I'm sure your mother would love it.

[Mrs Webmuppet]

I also used Free BMD (which is a free site no need to subscribe) it is fairly basic but covers registry of births, deaths and marriages.Genes Reunited can be a useful tool too.

 

I found relatives I never knew I had and found that my Great Grandad was a bigamist (4 marriages, only one of those wives was confirmed dead before he married again!) he was also 'living in sin' at one stage with a woman whose husband had only been dead for a few months! Not so much skeletons in the closet as skeletons in a walk in wardrobe

[quickcluck]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005NPFKX4/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p65_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H7ZD7VRPW1KY256C8PB&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=418449667&pf_rd_i=468294

 

I am looking at this, as mum isn't confident on a computer, and thought this may make it easier, what do you think?

 

Mrs W, what skeletons in your cupboard!! Were you shocked???

[Lydia]

That's a really good package on which to store your family tree and records but you'll still need some use of the website to get the records. It includes a 6 month sub to Ancestry so that would be a good way to get started and see if she gets on with it. Plus, she would have her family tree records stored if and when her sub ran out.

[Lydia]

PS know what mean about skeletons. I recently found my great grandfather who documents himself as divorced from wife no 1 when the divorce records clearly show it was struck out and never granted.

 

Then there's the 3rd great grandfather who married 3 sisters and a niece in quick succession (not all at the same time but heaven knows what he was doing as they kept dying!)

[redhotchick]

I use ancestry. I am interested myself, like you I was originally looking for a present for one of my parents. I didn't get the package from amazon. Originally I just joined ancestry and started building what I knew. I didn't have to pay to do this. Then I started to " pay per view". This wasn't very satisfactory. I left it alone for a bit (very little outlay at this point). I recently took up an offer for 4 months at £20. I have got back to the 1750s and have really enjoyed doing it. I've been sent photos and stories from one of my relatives and have visited a couple of graveyards. It is quite addictive!

 

Some advice I have seen re FTM. Is to Google "FTM problems" before you buy. The poor reviews seem to refer to people who already have extensive records and problems about synchronising and saving.

 

For £32.99 it would make a nice present and the premium membership will give you access to worldwide records.

[Mrs Webmuppet]

I knew that there was scandalous behaviour in my family tree but I hadn't expected there to be quite so much, bigamy,living in sin, running off with other women, illegitimate children, one the children is still alive and living in Canada.

 

I also found out the my Grandad who had said he had been in a clean up squad in the war had been telling me a pack of lies, he had seen active service and that the photo of him in front of a vehicle wasn't his jeep but a whacking great truck. He saw action in North Africa, Italy and Germany. If you're a history geek he was in the Mailed Fist division.

 

The vicar was so fascinated by the goings on in my family tree he got me to do a presentation in church one evening, fortunately everyone thought it was funny (I got Mr W to come up with a graphic of a skeleton waving from a cupboard to inject a bit of humour)

[quickcluck]

Goodness me! You must have been the topic of conversation for a while!

[Angie]

Gosh Mrs Webmuppet what a family !!!

I traced my Fathers' with the help of the Yorkshire Archives , ancestry.co and church records, even church yard searches. Nothing strange there, they were all church going people. Got back to 1670's without going to Ripon to do more work.

All land workers, weavers, cattle men, then into Bradford to the mills and mines. Some Military history, back to the 1780's , I am the last to have served, it is up to the grandchildren to carry on now.

But on my mothers' fathers' side a bit of scandal with one or two illegitimate children around a village in Halifax by my G Grandfather. Again land workers, farmers, farm owners, miners and mill workers. The funny thing about this side of the family....they are all related back to one family dare I say the name ???? no not today !

Things changed after the first world war and employment changed with more opportunities and careers were made, better education too.

It is a fascinating journey, can be very costly and time consuming. Glad I did it though, took 2 years.

[Mrs Webmuppet]

I'm still known as the lady with the scandalous great grandfather (apart from also being the chicken lady) I tracked down part of the family I knew very little about ,my Grandmothers siblings, i only knew of her half siblings - when my Greatgrandfather ran off with the woman I thought was my Greatgrandmother(but wasn't) he took my Grandmother with him.it took an awful lot of detective work and sending my Mother on a field trip to the archives, library and the coroner in Bournemouth.

[Seagazer]

I've used Ancestry in the past, I tend to leave it for a year and then go back and do some more. It is terribly addictive. I've 'met' quite a few distant relatives online through some of the sites. One informed me that our direct ancestor was hanged for being part of the Hawkhurst gang. There are even Old Bailey records about the case. Very embarrassing really and not at all like Poldark I've still not confirmed for sure that he is mine - its an interesting story to tell but I am sort of hoping its not right.

 

Through Ancestry my mum has also met a cousin that she never knew existed - she thought she was the only child from her Dad's side of the family. Fancy meeting a cousin when your in your 70s

[Redwing]

I was contacted today by a cousin I never knew I had! He used one of the online searches to find me

 

It does make me want to go out now and map my family tree

[redhotchick]

Do it Redwing! Has been said before, but it is totally addictive!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I can't take any credit for doing the searching but thanks to other family members I found out that I'm related (through my birth family) to the guy who was responsible for Dolly the sheep - they live in Edinburgh too but I've not made contact as it's quite a tenuous link.

 

On my adoptive dad's side, I found out that a relative of his has a plaque in Dublin cathedral - he was some kind of composer as was his daughter, both very well known in their time.