Ancestry offers a huge selection of records, plus tools for DNA results and tree-building
EASE OF USE 7.6/10
Our five readers were largely comfortable navigating Ancestry’s pages – Steve thought its interface was beginner-friendly, while Dave described the top navigation bar as “reasonably comprehensive”. It wasn’t all plain sailing, however. For Kay the site’s homepage was quite cluttered, and both she and Lisa felt that the help function could be better signposted. Julie and Kay also struggled with a lack of breadcrumbs to help them navigate backwards without having to resort to their web browser’s back button.
POWER OF SEARCH 7.8/10
The readers were reasonably impressed with Ancestry’s search tools. Lisa reported that it was “fairly easy to find a record but did depend on how you could narrow down the search”. This echoed what others thought – Kay felt the search offered too many options, which could prove counter-productive. Dave also struggled with certain name-based searches, and criticised the order of categories given in the results.
Also, Kay and Julie liked the ability to roll your cursor over search results to preview entries, for example to see likely spouses on marriage-index searches.
FAMILY TREE-BUILDING AND HINTS 8.8/10
Ancestry’s family tree builder and suggested hints tools were best in class. Everyone found the tree-building tools easy to use, whether uploading a GEDCOM file or starting from scratch. Displaying, reviewing and adding hints were also favourably commented on. “Having viewed the other sites, the way Ancestry presents the data when looking at an individual is by far my favourite,” said Dave.
CORE UK RECORDS 8.2/10
Ancestry scored highly here, although Steve pointed out that “some of the census records scans aren’t always clear”. There was some divided opinion on parish registers and BMD records – Julie felt Ancestry offered “a greater number of actual images of records rather than just transcriptions”, but Kay noted that parish records varied by county, with some offering just partial transcriptions.
SPECIALIST UK COLLECTIONS 8/10
Our reviewers were impressed with the large number of exclusive records, each highlighting a different set. Both Kay and Lisa admired the Card Catalogue, which makes it easy to browse the extensive record sets by category. Dave did, however, complain that many military records are hidden behind an additional subscription (Forces War Recor
