The Tree of Me

Which paid genealogy tool do you appreciate the most? What special features put it at the top of the list? How can it help others with their genealogy research? As I still work full time in a busy job I don't feel that I have the time to effectively utilise more than one paid site, although I would like to. I joined Ancestry several years ago with the offer of a free two weeks or one month and then forgot to take out my credit card details - a great marketing ploy! However, I have not been disappointed at all in that time. The great advantage of course in having your own subscription is that you can use it whenever you like. Last night my aunt rang me up about something, so I used Ancestry to check what she was asking me and together we discussed the results. I consistently (or perhaps persistently) use the Australian electoral rolls. The recent introduction of the 1980 rolls has allowed us to make contact with distant family members and this has proved to be exciting. R...

As I'm on holidays I have taken out a week's subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald Archives.  These archives cover from 1st January 1955 until 2nd February 1995. I have been using them to look up death  and funeral notices to add names to more recent branches of my families. I use the Ryerson Index and electoral rolls on Ancestry  in conjunction with the SMH Archives. The archives are relatively easy to search. When you hover over a page, a section turns yellow and that section is enlarged when you click on it. You can print or save the page as a pdf if you wish or add it to My Collection on the website. Each time I find a death on the Ryerson Index I add it to a spreadsheet with the details from the index and the main family name it pertains to. I have a separate page for each newspaper. After I find the information from the newspaper I delete the line from the spreadsheet. Usually I conduct this research at Dixson Library at the University of New England in Arm...