What's the most useful genealogy search subscription?

Rechuchote

I was looking at an Ancestry account, but does it, for instance, have access to newspaper archives? What others are there and what do they offer?

Hermy

To best answer your question you need to tell us what region and time frame you're researching.

While Ancestry does have some newspapers, for Irish and UK newspapers Find My Past might be a better option as they have extensive coverage.

There's also the Irish News Archive which is (to the best of my knowledge) still free to access in many public libraries.

pinkypinky

Ancestry does not have newspapers - for that you need their separate sub to newspapers.com which has poor coverage for Ireland.

Irish News Archive, as mentioned by Hermy, and also the British Newspaper Archive (many Irish titles). The latter can be used through Findmypast subs.

Hermy

Au contraire Pinky.

They have the Belfast Newsletter as well as extracts from The Times and Irish Independent, and Andrew's Newspaper Index Cards which I have found particularly helpful.

EDIT: There's also Ireland Newspapers 1763-1890, an unindexed collection which includes the Freeman's Journal and Irish Times.

pinkypinky

I have Newspapers but mainly for reading American obituaries when I do DNA work.

VirginiaB

It's yet another subscription but if you're looking for Irish who emigrated, an excellent source is the New York Herald which was the favored newspaper of the New York Irish in the 19c. It has many death notices with places of origin in Ireland, lists of family members, addresses and so on. It's on Genealogy Bank, a separate site with no other connection to Ancestry et al. It also has many other historical newspapers from around the US and other sources for genealogical research. It's also comparatively easy to search with all the usual OCR issues, however.

Rechuchote

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121639931#Comment_121639931

I really have to choose one subscription. At the moment I'm working mainly from the 1890s to the 1930s. I'll try the free trial of Find My Past and see how it goes - thanks for that recommendation, Hermy.

I've been using The Irish Times's archive, but it's become useless - I think they've dispensed with some of their techies - so I'll leave that subscription behind and put the money into whichever genealogical service is most useful.

Going to libraries to access the (fairly awful last time I tried it) Irish News Archive is not an option for me. In my experience you arrive at the library, they're serving people and by the time they can get free to bring you to a computer and set you up you've lost 15 minutes, especially as there's usually a student already sitting there whining "But they always let me use this" and they have to negotiate. The remaining half-hour you've budgeted is taken up with the archive's slow slow search, then you have to email yourself the results, if you've got them in time, and go home and use them. Unless I'm going to live another 150 years, it's not possible. Now, if they had a system like the universities, where a subscriber can log in and use the service from home, that would be practicable.

pinkypinky

I agree the Irish Times archive is appalling. I wrote to them about it previously but didn't get any response.

ProQuest also digitised it and that's available sometimes through university libraries. When I was in UCD, they had it.

Irish News Archive is better than it used to be but it does only produced 10 results at a time, which is frustrating. A lot of your complaints there about libraries though, who provide a free service, so I don't like to knock them too much. Also, planning to spend just an hour is mad: you need to allow much longer no matter where you do it.

pinkypinky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121642350#Comment_121642350

Genealogy Bank is very cagey about their prices. I can't see any details except that a popup offered 50% off if I signed up for a full year, which was usually $99. Even at 50%, I would still want to try it for a month before committing. After fiddling around for a while, I did find they have 7 day free trial. Once you've created an account, they show that a month's sub is $19.95.

Bicyclette

British Newspaper Archives have a range of subs and I've found them very helpful. I find at times, particularly for earlier stuff, they are better than Irish Newspaper Archives.

Hermy

The British Newspaper Archive is the same as that on Find My Past so I would generally recommend subscribing to Find My Past though I know some people prefer the search function at BNA.

Rechuchote

How does Find My Past compare to Ancestry in terms of finding records of people, for instance army records, photos, censuses, job records?

Hermy

It compares very favourably with Ancestry and it'll come down to personal preference as to which of them you prefer, regarding both site functionality and relevant records.

Having said that there's no one site that does it all and over time you'll no doubt have need of both FMP and Ancestry as well as many other free and subscription sites.

pinkypinky

The newspaper search functionality is much improved on FMP but it's still hard to find a list of what papers and dates are covered without using the main BNA website.

Echo entirely what Hermy says: there is no one sub that will do everything for you. Mixing and matching is essential. Rootsireland is the other Irish one that I wouldn't be without.

Hermy

Roots is one site I don't like and haven't used in a long time.

Whenever did use it I found the search function very restrictive.

For instance, I couldn't just enter a surname and hit enter - I needed to include more search parameters.

And that's not how I work, especially with less common surnames - I like to start with a broad search and then hone in on what I'm looking for.

And given that the site only has transcripts it's not exactly cheap.

I also have a huge bee in my bonnet about the family history centres but that's a separate issue.

No doubt I'm missing a certain amount by giving Roots a wide berth.

What would you say are its strengths Pinky?

ath262

jumping in on the RootsIreland question - they cover some parishes not included on the NLI/Anc/FMP systems, also cover some gaps and some more recent dates (believe they worked from the original registers), allow for searches of civil birth and marriage records not easy for common names on IrishGen - also non RC records often not available elsewhere.

On the negative side, very patchy coverage, some counties/areas have civil records, some just RC records etc

pinkypinky

Adding to what @ath262 said:

Quicker searching than on irishgenealogy where the coverage is doubled-up, so as a professional, I might choose to find something on roots, and then once I have it narrowed, I'll get the image from the former.

You can now search by all fields so this allows searching for godparents and witnesses.

They are not unified organisation and that's why there's such a difference in content. I also think it's confusing to have 2 centres for Galway and Tipperary and Cork. Most people won't know off the top of their head whether a place is in one of the other.

Rechuchote

There's a handy map on the https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/agreement.jsp site of the areas where people registered births, marriages and deaths. Tis often I haven't been able to find someone in the obvious place but found them with this map. Dammit, I can't find it on the site now, but I'll add it here.

There's also a handy map that someone's made of the Dublin electoral districts if you're looking at the censuses and want to knw if someone is, say, in X Street in Rotunda or X Street in North Dock.

https://www.dublinhistoricmaps.ie/boundaries/1901-1911-census-divisions/index.html

Irish Genealogy Registrar Districts Map.pdf

pinkypinky

Brian Hollinshead is a great man for the maps.

Robertr

I use both Ancestry & my heritage. Both can be very powerful when you combine with DNA test. However, I have to say the best tool I have used so far is RootsIreland to get a definitive view through the 1800s.

I use a simple system:

1. Get someone you know in early 1900’s, search for their Baptism record. It will state their parents names (including mothers maiden name)
2. Search for more baptism records using those two names (will be all siblings)
3. Then search for the marriage record of the parents. Will (usually) provide both their fathers names. Then using the farther name as a reference look for their baptism record. Then you get their mother’s name.

Rinse and repeat….

Also the death records can come in handy as sometimes the spouse will be the witness

Can usually get 2-3 generations with this approach.