Ancestory.com?

[Ben]

Has anyone here ever had a membership with them?

My dad and I the other day were talking about immigration to America of people with our (unusual) last name, and coincidentally this morning I stumbled on an ancestory.com page that listed passenger manifests from ships hitting Ellis island. The "teaser page" listed my dad, mom, and sister. To actually see the full document, you have to sign up for $25/mo.

I thought it might be cool to print out that kind of stuff and send it to my dad, and the $25 is nothing, as long as there's actually documentation there. So am wondering if anyone has ever been signed up for them and found authentic and useful documentation?

[charby]

I wonder if you can request a copy from immigration department.

[Parker Dean]

Mother has been doing genealogy research for years and it seems that Ancestry dot com is pretty much the place to be for that on the internet.

[cordex]

I did a one month membership a while back.  Yes, it has actual scans of the documents, although I don't remember how easy it was to print them off.

[Ben]

I did a one month membership a while back.  Yes, it has actual scans of the documents, although I don't remember how easy it was to print them off.

Thanks. I can always screen grab, good enough. I would have considered checking fed.gov sites, but I'm guessing the headache of navigating through them isn't worth 25 bucks. 

[cordex]

It's been years since I looked into it, but I think Ancestry.com is doing a lot of the actual digitizing themselves.  To get a lot of the records outside their service you'd have to go check out the microfilm or whatever.

[MillCreek]

My next-door neighbor has been doing genealogy research for years through her LDS church, and she routinely recommends Ancestry.com to people. 

[Cliffh]

DW was a member of Ancestry for years, she just said "Yes! It was definitely worth the $25/mo." 

She's been researching both sides of the family and has found quite a lot of info there that either wasn't available other places* or was harder than hell to get to (i.e. .gov docs).  There were other charges involved for overseas newspaper articles and such.  Printing the info from Ancestry wasn't a problem.

She did get a lot (most) of the info for at least 6 military members directly from the .gov - at a substantial cost.

She's done with the research now.  And she thinks the Ancestry account is closed - after trying for months to get them to close the account - mainly 'cause she had her debit card replaced and didn't change the billing info at Ancestry.  She also told the bank to not accept any charges from them.

*That would be because Ancestry somehow accumulated damn near all of the historical info available.  There used to be a number of free sites for research, they gradually went away for some reason or other.

[Ben]

Thanks all. I think I will sign up for one month then cancel. I'll pick a rainy or snowy day, research and download like crazy, then cancel. 

[Fly320s]

Thanks all. I think I will sign up for one month then cancel. I'll pick a rainy or snowy day, research and download like crazy, then cancel. 

Use a one time CC number so they can't automatically renew you.  Something like a Visa gift card.

[Ben]

Use a one time CC number so they can't automatically renew you.  Something like a Visa gift card.

Good idea. One of my cards lets me do virtual CCs at will.

[K Frame]

There's also another genealogy site... geni.com.

I think that one is free.