Google is to search engines as Ancestry is to genealogy
websites but Google is free and Ancestry actually has some free
collections that you're going to want to discover. Howdy, I'm
Devon Noel Lee with Family History Fanatics and I want to
help you climb your family tree and enjoy the journey. Be sure
to sign up for our newsletters which will give you reminders
of when we have new content as also tell you some other things
that you might want to know let's dive into ways that you
can access collections on Ancestry for free. Now, you're
probably thinking, wait a minute, you're going to send me
off of Ancestry first before I dive into Ancestry. I know this
sounds a little odd but yes, I want you to take advantage of
other free websites first before you start going into
Ancestry because I want you to maximize not only their free
record but if you do purchase a subscription, I want you to get
the most bang for your book. So, use a free website such as
Google Digital Public Library, Library of Congress Chronicling
American Newspapers. You can also build your tree over on
WikiTree if you're not a big fan of family search. The Wiki
Trees would love for you to join them and their community.
So, there is a lot of things you can do off of Ancestry you
hop over on to Ancestry. The next thing I want you to do is
I want you to create a free Ancestry account. There are
number of things you can do once you have that a free
account. First of all, you can activate a DNA kit and connect
it with your Family Tree which you should build. You can build
your tree to an extent and then you'll hit some limits and then
have to pay for a full subscription in order to take
advantage of color coding, linking, and some of the other
tools that we shown here on Family History Fanatics. The
other thing you can do is you can look at the training videos
that Ancestry puts together. We have a lot of videos here, some
of my colleagues on the YouTube has training on how to use
Ancestry but there's an Ancestry Academy that you have
access to. For a full list of what you can do, be sure to
check the link in the description for our show notes
and I will tell you some of the things I like and also direct
you to the latest version of what you can do for free with
your account direct from Ancestry. Now, if you are a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints
because of tithing dollars from people around the world, you do
have access to portions of Ancestry.com for free. I have
found that most of what I'm trying to investigate is
included in the free partnership program. There are
couple of features that are specific to Ancestry accounts
that are through this LDS Partner Program. For more
information on that, make sure you look in the show notes. I
will have a link directly to your partner access page where
you can learn more details and get signed up for that free
account. Oh, but those warm ins, they are not the only ones
who have special benefits like that. There is a special
benefit for those people who live in New York. You can go
through the NYGNB and access New York records. There will be
a link in the show notes for all of the details out there.
If you know of other organizations that provide
access to the record collections online, make sure
that you drop me a link in the comment section below so that
others may find, oh hey, I'm a member of that organization,
that's how I can take advantage of either a full or partial
Ancestry subscription in addition to the free record
collection. Alright, so now, with that in mind, let's talk
about the free collections that are over on Ancestry.com. There
will be a link in the show notes. It's not necessarily
easy to find how to get to the free collection page but there
will be a link there but this is what it's going to look like
when you get there. You're going to see a number of
different record titles and you will see free index and free
beside it and I looked for training. I looked for
instructions on what's the difference between free index
and free and it's not consistent. So let me walk you
through some examples. So this one was marked as free notes on
Kentucky Veterans of the World War of 1812 by Glen Glift. I
noticed that you can actually do a search by name. So I put
in George Stockton. Uh there is also a browse on the right
where I can just go click on maybe the surnames that include
the S in it. When I get here I actually can see the book that
the record collection database searchable side and browse
guide point take me to. So, free meant free. I can see the
notes for this collection. Um Fleming, he was from Fleming
County. He commanded a company of marines. He returned to Fort
Seneca and where is it from the Fayette County Pension List.
So, perfect. I've got enough information to keep digging.
Enough information to make sure I got the right guy and enough
information to keep digging. So, that's free. Now, this one
was free. I found there were a lot of free collections related
to the Holocaust and Jews being scattered during World War II
and killed and imprisoned and things of that nature. But when
it said free if it had free didn't say free index. I looked
for a name I hope I said that right. I know how to say
Solomon. Um and then it just stops here. So there isn't an
image but what I could then do is I can go to the reference
database which is the Jewish genealogy group and then pursue
this further. It maybe that there isn't an image associated
with this collection and that maybe why it just really is an
index page or could be something more than I would
advise you to go to the archive that is on that results page
and then see what's there. So there are no promises but you
do have to join the Jewish Genealogy Society in order to
actually see what might be behind that pay wall. If you
are a member of the Jewish Genealogy Society and you can
speak more to the different collections go ahead and leave
some thoughts in the comment section below. Lots of people
read that and they would love to learn more about the
collections have on Ancestry and then what you have in the
Jewish gene. Help us know why we need to pay a subscription.
Definitely go ahead and do that. So now here's a free
collection that's listed as a free index and it's kind of
confusing. What did you like about the Ancestry free
collections if there are things from around the world. This is
one from Tasmania. On the left you're going to do a search and
on the right you can browse. Hm that's why I'm starting to not
understand terminology. So here are the search results for
Henry and what I can do next is all going to depend on the
particular collection. Sometimes you can get a prompt
that says if you want to see the actual image you're
going to have to subscribe. Some collections actually take
you to an image that looks like this. The the image behind the
index. It's just all depends. Now there were also collections
marked web in front of it. And when you type in a name such as
Reginald Marriott you get to a result page that looks like
this and you'll see this icon up here. This visit the website
icon. So there is an index. And it's available on Ancestry. And
then you go to a website to see further details. And this was
one from London Lives. And I really like it because it's
it's free and you can actually see some of these documents.
But not all web index ones are created equal. Here's another
web index and then I get to this error kind of page. The
error pages look different depending on the ones that are
behind it. I think I know what happens with some of these
collections where the index is on Ancestry and then when you
try to actually look at the website it is broken. I hope
Ancestry will go and call out the ones that lead you to
broken pages. From what I understand because I'm familiar
with some of the ones for Ohio that are free. Is that was
originally donated by someone and they had a website but they
didn't maintain their websites and so now their websites no
longer exist but Ancestry has that original index from
whatever agreement they had with the person who created
those websites. So if you see the broken link it's not
necessarily Ancestry's fault. The person behind the website
may have stopped using that website for whatever reason
that know that that this index was based on originally. If you
made it this far into this video, that means that you're
enjoying our content. Now, there's many ways that you can
continue to help us bring you the latest greatest content and
that includes checking out our blog, becoming a channel
member, hitting the subscribe button, hitting the like
button, leaving a comment, sharing this video with your
friends, and more. All of these little contributions helped us
continue to make great content to help you enjoy your
genealogy journey. So find a collection that is of interest
to you. This is for my Aussie viewers. It's from Queensland
index to government railway workers. I wish there were
these for the BNO Railroad in Ohio from my grandfather work
there but yay Aussie's for this. You can type in your
search terms. You can get your search results but remember
when you get here you have to sign up for the full account.
But what can you do if you still need to make your
research dollars stretch? Well then I suggest you visit a
Family History Library or an affiliate library. There are
libraries all over the world and there will be a link to
this map to find those Family History Libraries that are
available for you. See all those blue dots? Yeah. They're
all around the world. And that's one way you can access
the collection. You'll have to remember to a way to save your
digital images and save your discoveries or print them out
when you're at the library. You will be restricted based on the
hours of availability. I know when I was in Houston and I was
a volunteer in one of the libraries, we only had one day
of week for two hours of that day available from patrons to
come in. So, it's not ideal but remember, free isn't always
super easily accessible but take advantage of these if you
need to make your dollars stretch a little bit further.
My other suggestion to get a free take advantage of Ancestry
is ask for this for a gift. Why not ask for Valentine's,
birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever gift giving holiday
you celebrate. Ask your relatives to give you that
rather than more things to clutter up your house. And then
you can take full advantage of Ancestry for a year. My other
recommendation is that you be prepared. Uh use the card
catalog. Use the Family History Library and know what you
want to look for and how you want to spend your time when
you have your subscription when you have a subscription. You
not only access the records but you also access the DNA
matching and all of those cool features such as through lines
and the like. So, not a just ask somebody to give you their
subscription for free as a gift and then you're accessing the
whole website. If you're ready to learn how to use Ancestry
better so you can maximize your subscription. Make sure you
check out the playlist that's up above and for the latest
video from Family History Fanatics check out the one
below. Now you Now that it now if if come on why can't I say
if?