Access to the records featured in the Australian and New Zealand collections will be free until 11:59pm (AEDT) on Monday, 2 October 2017. To view these records, you will need to register for free with Ancestry.com.au with your name and email address. We will then send you a username and password to access the records. After the free access period ends, you will only be able to view the featured collections using an Ancestry.com.au paid membership
I tricked em good with a fake email, fake name and fake date of birth
You clever.
I doubt he came from royalty anyway
I doubt he has a tight arse.
Turns out we are slovenly bottomed Latvian serfs who love to quickly spend our money freely but foolishly…
Doesn't the 14 day trial make it free all the time?
If you forget to cancel your trial, you will be billed 12 months of membership fees ($299.98) in one payment.
Wow. I thought it was scummy when I struggled to get my month-to-month sub cancelled after a trial. They've really ramped up their efforts.
I've never paid a cent to Ancestry, whenever there is a free access weekend, i use it to download the records I want, then upload them back to my family tree and attach it to the family member record. That way i will have access to it after the free access ends.
There is also 'Ancestry Library' which has full access to everything, and is provided to local libraries. It supposed to only be accessed from within the library, but there are ways around it to access from home.
As far as I am aware, it is just a matter of unticking the auto renew box somewhere on the site BEFORE the trial expires.
I have never taken the risk with a free trial - just in case!
@T1:
Ancestry Library Edition does not have FULL access. There are a few things not accessible. There is a comparison chart on the web, I don't have the location handy sorry.
I don't think all Libraries have it, you need to check your local library. Bayside in Melbourne has it, but I only just found that out. Usually I go to the State Library in the city, and do other research at the same time.
However, I took advantage of the UTAS family history Diploma that I saw here on Ozbargain last year. After doing the 4 free units I ended up finishing the Diploma, putting the other 4 units on HECS, which I am unlikely to pay back as I am retired, but it's only $1700 all up. I am going to Hobart in December for graduation ceremony.
As part of doing the Diploma you get access to Ancestry Library Edition via the UTAS Library, and can access at home by logging into the Library.
Do you have any specific way of accessing at home??? I am interested as I am not sure if I will lose access to UTAS library now I have finished the Diploma.
Yep, had a shitty situation when I went to sign up for the free trial, got to the second last stage (Didn't even click "finish my registration") and changed my mind. They took that as me registering. Of course I didn't check my email because I never actually finalized my subscription.
The trial days finished and they charged me over $100 for a membership (Does that mean they tripled the price? holy cow) I emailed them a few times and demanded they refund me or i'd make a claim with my bank for a charge back. It worked because they refunded me.
Jokes on them. I don't even have $300 in my bank! :(
I know I'm a Wog from Greece, what else will this tell me?
Tell your cousin Tony the Yugoslav is looking for him farkin, I vant my money farkin!
Looks like someone watched the Wog Boy the other night on TV
ME TOOO!!!!
I do wonder what they have access to that I can't already get through public record. Or have they just crowdsourced family trees?
They have digitised and transcribed millions of records from all round the world, much the same as the Mormons, MyHeritage, Findmypast, et al are doing.
Ancestry has a lot of stuff that I cannot access easily, and even if it is on the public record, you still have to go to a records office to view it, and pay for a copy etc.
There is a ton of stuff available free, gratis and for nothing available on familysearch.org This is the Mormon church's site based in Utah. Just create a free account and go for it. Of course, Mormon's get extra privileges, but this site has been extremely useful for me. If you are interested you can also volunteer to index and transcribe records. One of the current projects for Oz that is being worked on is the Victorian shipping records.
Don't tell Jon Snow…
The internets
Ancestry really looking to expand this year
Make sure you cancel. Friend got stung big time.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but this seems really pointless. It's pretty much just electoral role records?
Nothing like just electoral ROLL records.
There is tons of stuff, births, deaths, marriages, census records (not for Oz), shipping, military records, some electoral rolls, trade records, school records, etc etc.
It is more geared to the US, but there's tons of stuff for the UK, and not quite as much for Oz, but the collection is growing.
I should have said the only accurate records seem to be electoral ROLL (thanks for the grammar hint). Perhaps it's just my family, but there's not too much of anything apart from electoral ROLL records (yes, I'm aware of all the other search options - the "tons" of content).
Deal may as well be targeted as I'm sure it'll be useless for non-Caucasians.
You won't know till you look - and a look won't cost you anything.
This free weekend is for Australian and New Zealand records. If your early ancestors are not from here, then yes, it may be useless.
I have not done a search to see what "non-Caucasian" countries Ancestry has records for. It may well be that mostly European/Caucasian countries are covered at the moment, though I know there is an Ancestry site for Mexico.
familysearch.org may be better, but no matter who it is, I'd say it is going to be very hard to find records for say India, Vietnam, definitely China,
Japan, Arabic and middle east etc. But I am no authority on this. My field of research is Oz, UK and Germany.
SJW Logic…
Must be white privilege..
Where did he mention anything about privilege? He was just stating a fact.
Don't waste your time. Still asks you to signup and pay for the real information you want/need.
Want it all for free? Go to your local library and access ancestry.com.au there. Most public libraries have full subscriptions available for you to use for free.
Incorrect, you DO NOT NEED to pay to view all Aussie records this weekend.
Find the information you want, download it and it's yours free, gratis and for nothing.
Just click on the search free box in the Free Access box on the home page - ancestry.com.au
Put in the name of an ancestor, and click search. It will ask you to register.
You can aslo save any records you find to your Shoebox, and they will always be available to you any time you log in. You just won't be able to see anything more than just indexes outside of the free periods.
However, you will not be able to view you Shoebox if you use Ancestry Library Edition at the library as you are not logging in as yourself. You can email records back to your home email with the library edition.
Guess you have not done as you say. Searches fine for most simple searches. However when you get down to viewing/accessing the actual documents (actual shipping records, actual marriage records, probate records, exact birth/death dates not just year etc etc) it asks you to register your credit card. As I said don't waste your time. Just go to library. No need for credit card.
I tested this as I wrote the instructions.
It works perfectly well, and is the same procedure that I used to create an login on a previous occasion.
In your case it appears to be User Error, not any problem on the part of Ancestry. Other people I know have set up free accounts easily and are happily using the records over this weekend. So I have no idea what you are doing wrong.
@johninmelb:
What I have done wrong is expect to see ALL Australian records for free. Many are. Some (as specified above) are not. Third party stored references are not free and ask for credit card registration at ancestry.
If you are looking for - what you call ACTUAL records - then you will NOT find most of them on any of the major genealogy sites.
For example Ancestry, FMP, MyHeritage etc, DO NOT have copies of the ACTUAL birth, death and marriage registers of say Victoria which is where I live. It will be the same for all other states I am sure. Reason for this is that the Registrars in each state ONLY sell copies of the indexes to these sites. If you want an ACTUAL date of birth, death or marriage then you MUST purchase the certificate, or hopefully someone in your family has a copy.
In Victoria only Probate indexes are available. You note the number then make a request to the PROV to view the actual records. They will advise you when it is available to view at their reading room. May well be the same for other states.
The shipping records are also available to view at the PROV. Ancestry has the indexes to these records as far as I know. They may also have digitised copies of the microfilms. Someone else may be able to answer that. I will look on Ancestry Library Edition later today.
If you are looking for actual marriage dates, try TROVE and see if the marriage was reported in the papers. TROVE is also good for death and burial dates, along with the cemetery where they were buried.
I think you may have an unrealistic expectation of just what you expected to find on Ancestry. For England, for example, there is more information. They have the indexes to the the births, deaths and marriages like us, which only give a year, the quarter, and only the registration district - not the actual town, village etc - in which the event took place. However, in many cases they have transcriptions of the Parish Registers, which will show the actual date of birth, the parents etc.
I don't have the time and space here to give lessons in Genealogy. In any case I charge for courses in basic family history.
Just a scam, you can search for free but can't download any documents
Just go to your local library
Read my reply above.
You can download whatever you like until 11.59pm on Monday night.
Thousands of people all round the world regularly take advantage of these free weekends and download tons of stuff.
Of course Ancestry hopes you will join, but unless you are a hard-core genealogist, why bother.
You've got 2 days left so get cracking.
Don't they obtain the rights to your DNA when you sign up?
Sign up for what exactly??
They cannot get your DNA unless you specifically buy an Ancestry DNA test, do the test, send it back, activate it and get the results.
You can only see the results if you have an Ancestry account - which includes a free account.
I only have a FREE account, and I am able to access my DNA results. I bought the test half price at a Genealogy Conference in the US last February.
There has been discussion about your question on the net, so do a search and find the answers you seek.
But IF IT CONCERNS YOU, DON'T DO THE TEST.
Would have thought that was easy to understand, but maybe not for some people.
Just looked up the Scab family and it says my ancestors all suffered from leprosy. 😢