Ancestry.com

Who has been on Ancestry.com in the last little bit?  I checked this website out a few years ago, did okay with finding some stuff, but kept coming up short at certain spots so I quit.  Fast forward to last week when I decided, on a whim, to check the site out again.  And wow, was I amazed at the changes!

First of all, when searching a particular person.... say, your great grandmother, when her name is found on a census or other documents, a little leaf flags by her name.  Then you can click on the leaf and many times, you can view a copy of that page in the census (or other document)!  It is really amazing to see the older style writing and find your ancestors' name on those pages! 

I was also able to find military documents on some ancestors.  These are much more rare than finding a name on a census, and pretty cool to see an ancestor's signature, where they may have been stationed, draft registration cards, etc. 

One of the clues that would pop up was if that name is in other people's saved family trees.  Which was awesome because it gave you hints about an ancestor's mom and dad in some cases if you were having a hard time finding that information.  It also gave information on brothers and sisters.

Now there was a couple of drawbacks that drive me crazy.  One is that when a document is saved for an ancestor, if you do not remember the person you saved it under it is hard to find.  Even if you do remember the person it is saved under, it is still hard to find!  Seems like it could be a little more simple to find the things you already saved.  Another problem I found is that if there is a misspelling in a name, say, your aunt had a name that was misspelled a few times, then if you did not pay attention, it would pop up that person 3 times, like they are 3 different people.  It is a simple fix, but still a pain.

Overall, this was very addicting over last weekend.  I would stay up and could not help but keep looking for more information late into the night.  If you do get stuck and cannot find information on someone, especially when you are getting way back there in the 1700s and even 1600s, you can Google that name and many times there are other people asking the same questions in various genealogy forums and you may find your answer!  By the way, there is a 14 day free trial you can check out, just remember to cancel before the 14 days are up if you do not want to get charged!