Genealogy Forum UK

Hello everyone, I just joined. My name is Vic and I live in NW England. I’ve been using FreeBMD, FamilySearch, and online parish clerks, which are excellent, but it would make things quicker and easier with access to much more information.

Eg. I spend days finding a man I think is an ancestor, only to then find another man with the same name, born the same year, in the same village (sometimes same street), but with different parents and a different wife, but sometimes the wife’s even have the same first name. So I go off on a tangent or back where I started. It also makes matters worse when G.R.O. doesn’t even show the mother’s maiden name for one of them. You guys must know the frustration. Access to actual certificates should help clear things up.

Anyway, I’m considering subscribing to either Ancestry or FindMyPast. I can only afford one of them and need to choose which is best for my purposes, so which provides better coverage of Lancashire, Cheshire, Salford, Manchester, Bolton, as this is where my ancestors mainly lived.

Do they both show images of actual census forms and birth/marriage/death certificates?

Do they both have the 1921 census, 1939 register, document scans, newspaper archives, etc.?

Do they both give the property addresses from census records?

Thanks in advance.

hi Vic welcome to the forum

have you had your DNA done i would suggest you get it done if not, ancestry have the biggest coverage but you can download/upload ancestry dna to my heritage and find out which ones give you the closest hits.

then try the free subscription they offer to help you decide, but remember to cancel any free subscription within the time frame,

you could do a month of each to see what's best for you?

Welcome to the forum Vic.

As peterd says about Ancestry & Find My Past "try the free subscription they offer to help you decide, but remember to cancel any free subscription within the time frame"

Neither of them show you images of Birth or Death Certificates, just Baptisms and Burials. They do show Census records and marriages that took place in a Church not in a Register Office.

Hi

Hi! Have you tried your local library? Some have free access to Ancestry I think, at least they used to. Maybe you could check that out before paying anything. https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/libraries ... l-history/ is for Lancashire and it shows some access to Ancestry and also the 1921 census via Findmypast

gardener wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 4:55 pm Hi! Have you tried your local library? Some have free access to Ancestry I think, at least they used to. Maybe you could check that out before paying anything. https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/libraries ... l-history/ is for Lancashire and it shows some access to Ancestry and also the 1921 census via Findmypast

local achieve have free access to find my past and ancestry

Hello,

I'm with Ancestry and I also use local church parish records, some can be bought online or via Midland-Ancestors shop (online). Libraries have Find My Past on their computers although I have no idea if they are free to use or not.

Enclosed are useful links: -

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/

https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/

https://midland-ancestors.shop/

https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/