Which service/services do you subscribe to?

[brickwalls]

I'm currently looking into the cost of the various websites, and the amount of information available on each, and I was just wondering if I could get some advice on which websites people use, and opinions on them.

I'm currently torn between Ancestry and Findmypast. Find my past is slightly more expensive a month, but does include access to the 1911 census, but Ancestry has "Irish records".

Which one of the two is better, or is there an even better service out there? I'd rather not sign up to findmypast on a 6 month subscription if Ancestry is accepted to be the better of the two.

[MarkCDodd]

I subscribe to:

Ancestry
FindMyPast
TheGenealogist
World Vital Records
Genes Reunited

Depending on what you want to do, here are the pro and cons.

If you wish to host your tree online and get usefull hints from other people who are researching the same people.....Ancestry wins by a country mile.

Ancestry will soon have the 1911 census but with a better search engine than FindMyPast.

FIndMyPast is good for Military records and their new Birth index is excellent. But they still have very primitive death and marriage indexes.

FindMyPast is good for shipping out of the UK but Ancestry is better for shipping to the UK and around the world.

For Black Country research the Parish Registers on Ancestry are far superior to FindMyPast.

FindMyPast is also purely UK. They do have FindMyPast.au but that is just a subset of World Vital Records.

So if you have relatives spread around the globe, FIndMyPast is totally useless.

I use TheGenealogist for excellent Parish records, Non Confomist BMD, Overseas and Military BMD, all of the PCC Wills, a huge and searchable range of Trade and other directories and by far the best Census search engine.

Genes reunited is only good for contacts. Millions upon millions use the stupid thing but it is totally useless when compared to Ancestry or FindMyPast.

World Vital Records is the most amazing collection of information in one spot. You have no idea what a search will find and they are continually adding information to it.

[brickwalls]

I'd not heard of The Genealogist or world vital records, I'll check them out. Thanks.

I do have ancestors from other countries, so Ancestry does seem to be the better option. I can wait a while before getting the 1911 census, as I've got the essential stuff from it, so anything other would be chasing a rumour or a suspicion.

I've got admit, I thought it was expensive just signing up to one engine, I'd hate to see your genealogy bill each month Thanks for the input though. I have used ancestry at the library, and did consider using the free trial until I saw they wanted your CC details at signup. I'd prefer they didn't have them until I was sure that I wanted to continue using their service.

[MarkCDodd]

Subscriptions to all of those add up to less than $1000 per year.

That less than $20 per week for my hobby.

I can't think of any other hobby that is such good value for money.

[brickwalls]

True, when you put it like that it is a very reasonable amount to pay.