Issue 25 & 26
For research in the United Kingdom, start off with the free sites about background information: BBC Family History – designed to help the beginner get started http://www.bbc.co.uk/familyhistory/ GENUKI, a large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. http://www.genuki.org.uk/ The National Archives – lots of detailed advice at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ FamilySearch – Records Search prototype for searching millions of records which takes you into their growing assortment of records indexed online by volunteers at http://pilot.familysearch.org/
www.freebmd.org.uk with civil registration of births, marriages and deaths and links to free census and free registrations, which may be useful if you are looking for censuses and parish records in the areas they have done. Note: Free BMD does carry an Ancestry.com advertisement at the top of most pages, which will take you out to Ancestry.com to be lured into buying a subscription. Instead, the Free BMD search has a red logo further down the page. United Kingdom UKBMD with links to a variety of other sources for births, marriages and deaths in various parts of the country at www.ukbmd.org.uk/
Note that the cheapest way of ordering certificate copies for England and Wales is probably direct from the General Registration Office (GRO) via http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/ rather than through Ancestry.com or any other commercial intermediary, if you are able to do so.
Ancestry.com does have very good coverage of censuses in the UK from 1841 to 1901. However the quality of some of its transcriptions is probably not as high as come of its competitors like FindMyPast.com and GenesReunited.com, which have similar coverage. Find My Past has the 1911 UK Census.
Bear in mind that Ancestry very often has “free trial” offers which often pop up if you wander into their territory from other places like the National Archives and FreeBMD. If you are well organized and focused, having done your preliminary research from free sources, you can achieve a lot in a free trial period, though to keep it free make sure to note exactly how to sign out before it ends, or you will be charged.
Shanna Sullivan Jones is a professional genealogist now accepting new clients. For additional information, Shanna can be reached at (435) 628-4900 or shannasjones@msn.com.