alternatives to ancestry.com?

macgeek

macgeek

Member
at $25 a month, $79 for 6 months, seems a little pricey for me. Are their other genealogy sites you have tried and you like that cost less?
 

23andMe .. but not inexpensive. My brother gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago. I think there are different "tiers" you can purchase.
 
I thought that was just a one time deal. They do your DNA and that's it. I will have to see if dad knows that he's gonna get charged every month. That will make mom mad.
 

Pinky said:
23andMe .. but not inexpensive. My brother gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago. I think there are different "tiers" you can purchase.
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looks like they start at $99.... I was hoping for something lower cost.... may not be such a thing out there.
 
Have to chuckle when I think of the uproar people put up when the govt. wanted a DNA data base. Oh, the wringing of hands... too much information for them to have. Now, here we are, paying people to build a DNA data base under the guise of ancestry. 😮
macgeek, if you become a member of the Mormon church, you can have Ancestry dot com for free. 😂😂
 
I've tried My Heritage as well. They all seem to be similar, but I've not bothered too much anymore. I've met many relatives, but who cares? Didn't know them before and not interested now. I did help, with the assistance of a cousin, an adoptee to locate her birth family. She turned out to be an out of wedlock of an older cousin of mine whom we never knew about. She was very grateful to know she had a birth family out here, but that was the end of it.
 
squatting dog said:
Have to chuckle when I think of the uproar people put up when the govt. wanted a DNA data base. Oh, the wringing of hands... too much information for them to have. Now, here we are, paying people to build a DNA data base under the guise of ancestry. 😮
macgeek, if you become a member of the Mormon church, you can have Ancestry dot com for free. 😂😂
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You can also go to a Mormon genealogy center (they have one in many larger cities) and use it for free. They'll give you any help you need, too. You don't have to be Mormon; everyone is welcome.

The day I spent at the big genealogy center in Salt Lake City got me started on my searches. They assigned me a helper who sat with me for a couple of hours until I got the hang of it. They didn't even charge me for copies nor would they accept a donation.
 
jujube said:
You can also go to a Mormon genealogy center (they have one in many larger cities) and use it for free. They'll give you any help you need, too. You don't have to be Mormon; everyone is welcome.

The day I spent at the big genealogy center in Salt Lake City got me started on my searches. They assigned me a helper who sat with me for a couple of hours until I got the hang of it. They didn't even charge me for copies nor would they accept a donation.
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Same here... years ago, went to a Mormon center in Gainesville Florida and tracked the family back to the Mayflower days. (y) Didn't know if they're still doing it that way since they are the one's who own Ancestry dot com. Thought they might be charging for it now.
 
My DD wanted me to get 23 & Me. She had it and I recognized some of my cousins. I would never contact someone who I’ve never heard about and likely wouldn’t even if I do know them. They only seem to give a discount on the tier that does your medical. Not sure I want to know that.
 
Full disclosure, a relative works at 23 and Me, but I had an account before the relative joined the company.

It depends on what you want to do with/on the site. For DNA ancestry my main source is 23 and Me but for my family tree building it's MyHeritage.com. One can download their DNA information from 23 and Me and add it to their MyHeritage.com account. I've found DNA relatives on both sites but most seem to come from 23 and Me.

One gets up to 250 relative records in MyHeritage.com when building a family tree. One can add their own records or add records that seem to match information on the records in ones tree. However when you add a match by confirming it it brings all of the records associated with that record into your tree using up some of your 250 free records.

I personally am really only interested in my ancestors so once I realized that confirming matches used up records what I did was simply get the additional information from the match (usually information on one or more parent) and manually created the parent records myself so each one only used up one additional record.

Using it that way I have some records going back 12 generations to the 1500's with opportunities to go back even further with matches that I haven't added yet. I'm almost at 250 records so I can't go back much further, but I'm working on my son's tree with my side of the family only adding records manually so I can go back further on his tree.

If you'd like any additional details please feel free to contact me.
 
I am not building a family tree to meet new relatives. I did it to learn about my ancestors in the past. I would rather spend the money on Ancestry than spending it on other things. To me it is worth every penny. I never knew much about my family and through my family tree I have found my family. I think about these people a lot and have so much respect for what they went through. I have not done the DNA thing as of yet, not sure I need to.

I like to spend a day visiting their graves as many are close by. Or maybe their homes or where their homes used to be.
 
good ideas here, thanks. :)

family tree is my main interest....DNA stuff not so much. myheritage wants credit card info for a 14 day free trial? no thanks. LOL
 
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It is my understanding that if you only want your DNA done and nothing more you can do that for $100 and there is only a monthly charge if you sign up for ancestry.com.
 
Other than telling you the name of an ancestor or relative, do these sites tell you any information about them? I’d hope not.
 
Find My Past or Genes Reunited can give you some information but usually to obtain more in depth information you will need a subscription. Ancestry.co.uk sometimes have a weekend for free. Easter weekend was a free weekend and they may have another weekend. Perhaps Ancestry.com provides free weekends but keep a look out. I have also managed to obtain a lot of information from Family Search and UK telephone directories. Our libraries are not open for usual service and it was there that we had use of the computers for free Ancestry and Find My Past. History Centres also provide free geneology services but given the Covid 19 not all will open.
Don't know if that helps @macgeek but it might give you ideas.
 
I am lucky that I have a cousin on my Dad's side of the family that was obsessed with our ancestry. He searched all the way back to the 1500's. He even visited the place in Italy were they lived many years ago. I have pages and pages of information. Now if only one of my many cousins on my Mom's side would look into it,I would be happy. As far as me looking ,no way.
 

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