Online Subscriptions
There is a great deal of difference between online
services and the data you get for your money. As an
essential starting point, most people researching their
family history need records of Birth, Marriage and Death
and the census from 1841 to 1901.
The 'FreeBMD' website may be free, but it isn't complete so a complete
resource is needed in any subscription service.
Which subscription to go for depends
on a lot of factors: which data sets do you get, how
much does it cost and what features does the site have?
With new data being added all the time it can be hard
to choose which subscription to go for.
The next stage in researching your
family after the BMDs and census will be parish and
non-conformist records so having these as part of your
subscription has got to be a plus. These could take
your research back to the 1500's!
An important consideration
is being able to refine the results of a search using
the occupation, relationship and address fields in
the census and whether you can search for a family group.
If you are looking for John Smith, systems that use
indexed images will overwhelm you with hundreds of
thousands of results. Statistically you are going
to find common names in your tree so don't let them
become a stumbling block.
Only TheGenealogist.co.uk
can cut through to show you only relevant families
by using the family forenames search, advanced search
and house search. Keyword and Advanced search allow
searching of occupations, addresses, relationships
etc.
All the subscriptions
compared below are paid annually. TheGenealogist Personal
Premium, Find My Past Explorer and Ancestry are credit
free (this means you can do as much searching as you
like in the year you have your subscription).
TheGenealogist
Personal Plus gives you 800 credits per annum. Searching
BMDs is free and viewing images cost 1 credit. Viewing
census images cost 3 credits and searching is 1 credit.
| |
The Genealogist
1
Year Personal Plus £55.95
1
Year Personal Premium £68.95 |
Find My Past
1
Year Explorer Subscription £89.95 |
Ancestry
Premium
Subscription £107.40 |
| PCC
Wills with images |
Yes |
No |
No |
| BMD
Records from 1609 with certificate images |
Yes
|
No |
No |
| Census
Transcripts 1841 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Yes
with images |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1851 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Only
6 counties |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1861 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Yes
with images |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1871 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Yes
with images |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1881 |
Yes,
Most counties with images |
Only
Transcript |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1891 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Yes
with images |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Census
Transcripts 1901 |
Yes,
Complete for England and Wales with images
|
Yes
with images |
Only
Name indexed images |
| Parish
Records |
Transcripts
Transcripts
with images
Ebooks |
FFHS
Online |
OCRd
text from books |
| Non-Conformist
Records
Wesleyan, Baptist and Quakers. |
Official
TNA Site for Non-conformist records |
None |
Some |
| Multiple
Family Forenames Search |
Search
up to 6 forenames with or without surname |
2 |
No |
| Land
Records for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. |
Yes |
No |
No |
| 100+
Directories |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Reference Books including Ancestral Trails |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Electoral
Roll |
Yes |
No |
No |
This
table reflects the status of the online services as
of 27th August 2009
|
