Ancestry vs MyHeritage vs FindMyPast

[Pheno]

Thanks for getting back to me. I think it is more that most people I share DNA with don't have common surnames in their tree and we can't find out how we match, also I have alot of illegitimate births in my tree and the father could be anyone

What I have done in the past with illegitimacy is, if I have an inkling of whom the father might be, then to put him into my online ancestry tree as if he is the true ancestor (albeit with a note) and then let thrulines and dna matches take their course and see if they link you with somebody else.  You can keep deleting these putative fathers and trying another person and seeing if anything different comes up.  Doing this has, in two cases, helped me overcome brickwalls.

Pheno

[StevenG]

So glad Ancestry have released Essex records.

Ancestry don't have the images for Essex, just links to the pay site. So it's effectively useless.

[melba_schmelba]

So glad Ancestry have released Essex records.

Ancestry don't have the images for Essex, just links to the pay site. So it's effectively useless.

Interestingly, in the description of the records (added in June), it states:

"About Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812
This collection contains images of Church of England parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754 from Essex, England."

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/essexearlyparish/

So, I wonder if the plan was originally for Essex to allow Ancestry to use the images, they then flipped on them, and stubbornly tried to squeeze a few more £1000s from their SEAX site, which in my experience is inadequate since many of the records are of very low resolution, so much so as to be in many cases illegible. Unless Ancestry rescanned the images, and handed them over to Essex RO. But this seems a very cack handed arrangement really, Essex should have just tried to get a bit more for their records by pitting Ancestry against findmypast or myheritage.

[emjsw]

Thanks for getting back to me. I think it is more that most people I share DNA with don't have common surnames in their tree and we can't find out how we match, also I have alot of illegitimate births in my tree and the father could be anyone

What I have done in the past with illegitimacy is, if I have an inkling of whom the father might be, then to put him into my online ancestry tree as if he is the true ancestor (albeit with a note) and then let thrulines and dna matches take their course and see if they link you with somebody else.  You can keep deleting these putative fathers and trying another person and seeing if anything different comes up.  Doing this has, in two cases, helped me overcome brickwalls.

Pheno

Hey that is a great idea, thanks very much for telling me about it