Good Value - Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Access (General)

by mrsbruso , Monday, August 08, 2011, 05:14 (4860 days ago) @ Jefff

Jefff,

At least on Ancestry.uk.co you can choose which collection you would like to specify -- you can tell it you want UK and Irish collections only. It does limit the number of US hits you get, but for some annoying reason it doesn't avoid them completely. It's always annoying when you list someone's birth and death information in the FOD and you keep being shown records for someone in New Jersey.

Since a lot of the early focus on the genealogy websites were based with the Mormon sites in Utah, they do seem to be rather United States centric.

Keep in mind that some sites are based on other users' contributions as opposed to public records. Even on ancestry other people's family trees may link into yours, in that you have both "claimed" a common ancestor who couldn't possibly have been in both places at once. My gg grandfather, for example, started a whole new family in the US well after his hundreth birthday. Quite a feat for someone who had been dead and buried for close to twenty years.

I have an ancient and once very expensive version of Family Tree Maker that I was very fond of, but it won't run well with the newer computers and I have never bothered to upgrade it. It was nice not having to be on line to work on my family tree, though.