Is Ancestry.com deluxe worth the money?

Question:It will cost about $156 dollars for a one year subscription. You you have used this before, please let me know if you found it worth the money or not.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It will cost about $156 dollars for a one year subscription. You you have used this before, please let me know if you found it worth the money or not.

I may be one of few devil's advocates here, but the real answer is that it's worth it if you know how to use it. But if you're a novice and you can't appreciate all the obscure databases or how to get beyond the Social Security Death Index (which is exceptionally misused on this site) then you're wasting your money. You're better off to go to your local library to use it for free until you get up to speed.

As for the passenger lists, there's little on there that you can't already access from http://www.ellisisland.org or http://www.castlegarden.org
Yes, there are other passenger lists not shown on those sites, but even those are published and on the shelves in most decent libraries and on film at your local LDS Family History Center. Don't subscribe to Ancestry.com just to get that information.

I wouldn't dissuade you from subscribing if it will have ongoing value to you. But if you're still learning to use the tools of the trade, it's hard to encourage you to go for the Howitzer. Ancestry has greater value pre-1880 than all other programs on the internet for genealogy research. If you can get your lines back that far, then by all means go for it.

I'm on the $31 / month thing it is good. If you have birth and death dates that are accurate with the right county and state. Birth,death, Marriage and census records will pop up. You can invite other family to contribute too. But it is time consuming so start it after you have gained all the info you can off tombstones and family records and when u have time to dedicate to putting all this info input. Also it will search other trees to see if they match.

Actually I have a full subscription for almost $400 a year.

Ancestry.Com I feel is the best for records on line. Now, no way are all the records on line.

They have all the U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet. They also have transcribed the censuses, but you can look at the original images. Now, their transcriptions are not perfect but once you start looking at the original images you can understand the problem. I don't think I could do better.

Just be careful about family trees on ANY website, free or paid. The information is user submitted and documentation is not required. Even when you see the same info over and over by many different submitters that is no guarantee it is correct.
A lot of people copy without verifying. Also many people merge other people's trees into theirs and upload the merged tree into various websites. What they have is a large collection of names and not quality research.

They have 4 family tree programs. Ancestry World Tree is the largest and oldest. One World Tree is an absolute mess. Public Member Tree and Private Member Tree, both are fairly new. I am finding Public Member Tree is an idea way to put my own family tree in and they have made it very easy to bring forth documentation into those trees. Only people that you have invited can see information on living people on Public Member Tree and Private Member Trees you must contact the subscriber.

Now the above poster is correct. Get as much info from liviing people as possible, particularly your senior members. Tape them if they will let you. What might seem to be insignificant story telling might turn out to be very significant.

Now whether you can find when your particular ancestor immigrated to N. A. will be determined whether his/her records are on the site or any website.

I have a friend whose father came from Sicily and mother from Calabria and she has found lots of information on her family at the National Archives in Washington. She said when you first go there you have to go through a lot of red tape to get a name tag but once you get your name tag whenever you go back, that name tag is all you need. They have volunteers there to help you.

Yes I have the world deluxe subscription and as far as I'm concerned it's worth every penny. I know it works out quite expensive, but I need it for my studies so it has to be worth it if it gets me through my college courses.

I have the World Deluxe membership with Ancestry.com and it costs me $29.95 a month, and can use ALL their affiliate sites from England to Germany to Italy to Australia, using just my USA password/user name. I always start my searches here, and find the most info. I think it is worth the money, because otherwise a lot of their sources are "locked out" (by a little padlock sign) to non-members.

I too found it worth it to have the deluxe membership. Some of their info can be found elsewhere, it saved me a lot of time and energy to have everything in one place. Also, saved me from having to even leave the house at some points!

yes it is. you wouldn't believe the amazing things you will discover. if you don't want to sign for membership, you should go for the DNA test on there.

it's good to have all the angles...
I have researched over 25 yrs, and never subbed at all, to anything until about a month ago. I am using the basic for ancestry, and picking up new stuff (as well as using for help here).
JUST to find immigration dates? that is something that you should be able to narrow down from standard census, and 1900 (I believe) normally has the immigration year noted on the census return.
Gen's mom has excellent points. Not being vain.. if someone says they can't find anything online, and I find a bunch for them.. it's in the tweaking (ie advanced searches, use google with quotation marks, etc).
The basic does not have overseas records as much as deluxe.
Pros and cons.