Anyone have a membership to ancestry.com?

[earthmother]

I am taking an online genealogy class and going crazy trying to find more info on my great grandfather and the ship he came on. every website keeps leading me to ancestry.com but its expensive. does anyone belong and recommend it?
thanks

[Danestress]

I am taking an online genealogy class and going crazy trying to find more info on my great grandfather and the ship he came on. every website keeps leading me to ancestry.com but its expensive. does anyone belong and recommend it?
thanks

It's so funny you should ask that, because until yesterday, I knew almost nothing about my paternal grandmother's family. Yesterday my sister gave me a letter a distant relative sent her and it included the names of the great grandparents. I found my great grandmother's immigration record on ellisisland.org - along with her siblings and parents. SO COOL.

After that, I started trying to get other information, but you are right. Most of it you have to pay for, and I was wondering about paying for ancestory.com too and thought about asking here, so how interesting that you had the same question today!

[Tracey in TX]

I belong to ancestry.com. It is worth the expense if you'll be doing intensive research that year. I got more info than ever knew possible. It allows multiple lines for same family (ie: option a and b, depending on info verified).
I thought there was a 20$/yr option. Even the year I paid $200 it was VERY, very worth it (but I wouldn't do that every year).

[Mama Lynx]

There's a $20/*month* option, so it's cheaper to do a year's membership.

I am using it right now, and love it.

[KarenNC]

Your local library may have a subscription that you can access at the library. Another possible resource is http://www.ellisisland.org/ if your ancestor came through Ellis Island (1892-1924). Here are the search tips for that site http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/ellis_island_search_tips.asp. There are some other free sites if it was earlier, but realize that the records get increasingly spotty the farther back you go.

I have belonged off and on for several years and find ancestry.com very worth it for the census indexing (far superior to the one at Heritage Quest which I can access online for free through my library), and some of the records transcriptions as well as the ease of use from home. I haven't found the world subscription overall worth the extra expense yet, but then most of our lines were in this country before the Revolution. If yours came later (and came primarily from the UK), it may be more useful.

If that's the primary piece of info you need, email me and I will see what I can do. k dutton at carolina dot rr dot com.

[earthmother]

I checked and one branch of our library does offer the ancestry.com for use by patrons. thanks so much! good luck to all of you who are searching like me.