Find my past.co.uk or ancestory.co.uk?

Hi
After many years of researching on and off on the internet, I have finally decided to take out an annual subscription to a general sites. I have used both Find my past.co.uk and ancestry.co.uk and can't decide between the two.
All of my research is UK based.
Can anyone recommend which one they prefer and why.

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Permalink Reply by Sean K on January 1, 2010 at 11:41am

The big advantage of Findmypast is that you can buy a small number of credits as you go along, as an alternative to a full subscription. Their transcriptions seem to be generally very accurate (I have an unusual, often misspelt surname), while ancestry have received criticism from some quarters of making mistakes. Findmypast also have the full GB censuses from 1841 to 1911, and a vast amount of parish register information given to them by the Federation of Family History Societies (I think).

It also annoys me that Ancestry (like many genealogy sites) seems orientated firmly towards its subscribers in the United States! This is handy to an extent, because I am building a One Name Study which includes a small number of families across the Pond. If you're solely UK based I would personally recommend FMP (aren't they a lot cheaper too?).

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Permalink Reply by beverley butler on January 1, 2010 at 12:03pm

Hi Sean

Thanks for your advice, I was veering towards Find My Past and it is a little cheaper, although the cheaper annual subscription doesn't cover the 1911 census. I wanted to do an annual subscription as I seem to be spending a lot on various sites buying small amounts of credits at a time which soon ger swallowed up.

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Permalink Reply by Sean K on January 1, 2010 at 5:30pm

You can currently get a 15% discount on the FMP subscription price, using the discount code SPROUTS (I really should claim a commission, haha)

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Permalink Reply by beverley butler on January 2, 2010 at 8:39am

Many thanks Sean. Just another thought....has anyone used The Genealogist.co.uk site. I haven;t used it much but it seems to offer a lot for a very good price

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Permalink Reply by eddie j hallett on January 19, 2010 at 9:15am

Hi new to this site but I have used ancestory for over 2 yrs its just great I have over 6000 names in my tree and they still find people for me it is so easy to add or remove people if you have ancestors fron london you can get free birth/marriage certs regards eddie UK

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Permalink Reply by Ron Ferguson on January 20, 2010 at 3:04am

I am sorry that I am late in coming to this thread, but I have been ill for a couple of weeks. I have written a blog comparing Ancestry v Findmypast at http://bit.ly/8e0Pw6, which you may find of use - if you haven't already made your mind up.

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Permalink Reply by beverley butler on January 20, 2010 at 8:00am

Thanks Ron, the comparison was very useful. I had actually decided on Findmypast because of the diversity of the records it offered, and bought some credits to test it.
After using Ancestory for some years I found the searches much less useful on Findmypast, especially for BMD. I also found that some of the records I was interested in were not available for the counties my research was centred in.
Consequently, I joined Ancestory. I think it is very much down to personal prefrence and how easy you find the site to navigate and search on.

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Permalink Reply by portman7 on February 17, 2010 at 1:16am

You can try at www.freebmd.org.uk or citydata.com useful. I used them to study various family trees made by genealogy family tree template which are very useful. . .