You shouldn’t be wasting time asking yourself which is best; Ancestry vs Find My Past. Controversial? I know. Read this guide to find out everything you need to know about these two genealogy giants. Please note, this article contains affiliate links. Clicking these may earn me a few pence, which helps me to keep blogging!
One of the most frequently asked questions I see online is, “which is better, Ancestry or Find My Past?” Users slug it out, fighting for their fave. Sometimes it gets brutal. Don’t be swayed by the crowd! Your ‘best fit’ will depend entirely on you and your preferences.
This article focuses on the UK offerings at both sites. OK. Gotta cuppa? Great! Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Both companies periodically offer free trials or limited time access to record sets. Once you’ve registered you’ll also find that you’re able to explore the sites in much more detail. Here’s what you need to check out before you part with your hard earned cash:
The Same Data Indexed Differently
This is a must must must do. I cannot tell you how important it is! Check out the data holdings for both websites. For Ancestry that’s a case of going to the ‘Search’ menu and then selecting ‘Card Catalogue’. For Find My Past (FMP), select ‘Search’ and click ‘A to Z of Record Sets’ from the drop down menu.
Both websites have an extensive index of data sets. These are the virtual equivalent of an old fashioned card index. Remember those from the library? No me neither. I’m far too young!
You’ll soon notice that both sites share much of the same data. They both have the ‘core record sets’ essential to tracing your English or Welsh Ancestors. For example, the 1841 to 1911 census collection and the UK Births, Marriages and Deaths registration indexes.
Make sure you take a really good look at any records that look to be identical across the sites. Whilst they might hold the same records, the way these records are searches varies across the sites.
For example, FMP offer a ‘search by address’ function on their census collection. Click the search menu and select ‘Addresses’. From here, it’s easy to select a census and search by ‘address’. It’s technically possible to search Ancestry’s census by town or keyword, but in reality it is not as fully functional as FMP.
So FMP is better right? If only it were that simple. Whilst FMP’s address search is superior, Ancestry enables you to search the census for a named person AND multiple other persons with whom they may be living. You can specify the name of a mother, father, spouse, children, siblings – and you can add multiple children and siblings. It’s powerful stuff. Let me give an example. I’m looking for the Smith family, in London. Needle. Haystack. Despair. However, I know that John Smith was married to Jane Smith and by 1911 they had 4 children; William, Edward, Elizabeth and Anne. All of these names are ridiculously common. But the number of families containing all of these names at all the right ages is considerably less than the number of couples named John and Jane Smith.
By contrast on FMP you can only search for one person living with one other household member. Fine if you’re looking for Mrs Happy Dance McUnusual and her husband Fantastico. Not so handy for John and Jane Smith.
Ancestry & Find My Past Offer Different Data Sets Too
Although many of their records are the same, both sites also offer unique data sets. It’s worth bearing in mind that over time the uniqueness of these changes.
Until May 2018, FMP was the only site to have the 1939 National Register. Now it’s at Ancestry too. At present, FMP has a huge newspaper collection (also available by subscribing to the British Newspaper Archive (BNA)) and provides access to the 1921 Census.
Ancestry has records from the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), including images of church baptisms, marriages and burials dating back to 1538. Its partnership with the LMA means that it has a host of London records, the images of which can’t be found anywhere else online.
Paying for membership to either site can unlock unique treasures. FMP is currently uploading reams of catholic records which can’t be found on other sites.
To complicate matters the divide of data between the two sites is not always clear cut. For example FMP has Hampshire parish records (transcriptions only), but Ancestry has Surrey parish records (including original images). My own Crondall ancestors would nowadays be classified as living in Hampshire. But that wasn’t always the case, and the Crondall records form part of Ancestry’s Surrey offering. So dive deep into those A to Z’s to work out who holds what.
Ancestry vs Find My Past: Which is the most expensive?
The cost for both websites has varied over time. There’s not really a big price difference between these two titans. FMP used to reward loyalty – i.e. prices for new subscribers might go up but existing subscriptions stayed the same.
However, this appeared to change in the last few years. It is therefore worth looking out for offers and should any appear around the time your subscription is up for renewal make sure you cancel your subscription so that you can take up the offer! In fact with Find My Past you can take advantage of offers by renewing early. This means you’ll shift onto the new offer as soon as your old subscription is used up.
Facebook Groups are great for finding offers to subscription sites, as is signing up to receive the Lost Cousins newsletter.
Cancelling your subscription will not mean that you loose access to all your family trees or DNA test results. Although you might not be able to view the actual records you’ve attached to your ancestors. Remember, you can download your family tree as a GEDCOM and / or use Family Tree Maker software for a smooth Ancestry / computer synch.
Whichever site you use – save every record you need to your own computer or cloud storage. It’s also wise to take regular downloads of your family tree. Don’t rely on anything built on land you don’t own.
How good are the transcriptions on Ancestry vs Find My Past?
True answer. Neither site are perfect. Vast amounts of data have been transcribed and there are bound to be ‘human errors’.
For both sites most of the records available are searchable by at least the name of your ancestor. But what happens if a name has been written incorrectly in the original record? Or perhaps it’s right on the original but its been transcribed incorrectly. My surname is Pithers, trust me, I feel your pain. Our ancestors weren’t always great at spelling their names consistently. But, with both sites you are able to search records using wildcards.
So once you’ve found a mistake what happens? With Ancestry you can submit a correction to an original record easily. You can do so from either within the record image view, i.e. whilst looking at the actual census doc or from the page transcription view. This is because Ancestry allows you to view both original and transcriptions simultaneously.
This means you can simply click the data you want to correct no matter how you are viewing the record. Once processed both the original spelling and the correction will appear within search results. Sometimes lots of different corrections will appear, based on other users submissions. Added bonus, you can click on the names of those users that have submitted corrections.
Ancestry gives you an incentive to correct errors. Each time you do so, you are setting ‘cousin bait’. Add a note to your correction encouraging cousins to get in touch.
FMP is lagging behind in this area. You have to ‘report an error’, an option that’s not always easy to see, although it is available on census pages. You have to be on the transcription page of the individual you wish to correct (rather than looking at the original image). So if you have 3 people whose surname has been spelt incorrectly then you have to click ‘transcription’ next to each of their names.
Then you’ve got to find the elusive ‘report an error’ button. Then you’ve got to type the correction, save it and move to the next person. Much much more onerous. To make matters worse you can’t see the corrections once they go live so it’s hard to tell whether they actually were enacted or not. You can’t see other people’s corrections and therefore the whole exercise seems to have little value.
Ancestry vs Find My Past: Which looks best?
Both FMP and Ancestry have unique ways of displaying search results. Generally, Ancestry provides a much easier ‘quick glance’ view of results. A search of the 1861 census records on Ancestry will provide a list showing names, approx. birth year and place etc. More importantly though, hovering your mouse over the name of the individual will bring up a floating box showing further info, such as a list of all the other names in that household.
Both sites offer access to thousands of search results. They are at your fingertips and ready to explore. Our time is precious and how these results are displayed is important.
Performing the same search on FMP reveals a very similar list of results. Sadly though, on FMP there is no information on how a person relates to any other person within the household.
To find out who else is in residence you have to view the full transcription, or the original. If you are looking through a long list of William Davies born in Wales then that extra click to view the whole household can be really tedious. As can the need to toggle between a transcription and the original image.
Despite these set backs, FMP’s search results do have one big advantage. You can choose how to sort the data. Each column, birth year etc, can be clicked on. Doing so re-sorts the data. I can search for William Davies and order by year of birth, ascending or descending. Ancestry cannot do this.
Ancestry vs Find My Past: Who cites it best?
Both websites have some work to do in providing clear and consistent source citations for individual records. Generally Ancestry provides their source citation info in a line of text. This makes it easy to copy and past. FMP display theirs in a table, meaning I have to copy and paste each section to form a sentence. On both sites the actual citations can sometimes be somewhat lacking. Neither is perfect.
Both sites provide information on which parishes (for which dates) are included in each data set. Usually on FMP this info can be viewed by clicking on a link in the data set. This takes you to a long table detailing all the parishes and all the dates covered. On Ancestry it’s a little less obvious. Sometimes I’ve had to browse a list of images, checking the years and flicking to the end in order to get a stop date. This means it’s easier to assume that you’ve checked all dates and all parishes whereas in reality the data set actually doesn’t include a parish – probably because that parishes data has been lost or damaged.
Comparing Trees & Hints
Both websites now offer the function to build your family tree directly on their site, or to load a Gedcom from a family tree package. Ancestry are old hats at providing this service. FMP is playing catch up, and it’s hints system is not as sophisticated. For example, FMP have only recently introduced the ability to message other users regarding their trees.
Ancestry users can message each other and have the ability to share images, text docs and sources by attaching them to ‘public trees’. They’ve recently rolled out group messaging functionality and improved ‘shared tree’ functions.
Be warned though, Ancestry’s hints features are dangerous. Less diligent users will accept all hints without properly investigating them. Sometimes there are literally hundreds of trees that are all incorrect – because they’ve all copied each other and that one hint error has been multiplied across tens of users.
The happy-go-lucky acceptance of hints is a real shame as the ability to share trees, sources and information is absolutely invaluable. Combined with an Ancestry DNA test, it’s a powerhouse….which brings me nicely to our next section…
Ancestry vs Find My Past: DNA
Despite it’s refusal to introduce handy features like My Heritage’s Chromosome Map, Ancestry has the largest DNA database out of all the various DNA providers. Users can also download their ‘raw data’ from Ancestry and upload their DNA to other sites – like My Heritage, Family Tree DNA and Gedmatch.
Ancestry’s DNA matching system allows users to colour code their matches, filtering and sorting them into groups. You can add notes to your matches, view their public trees and of course message them.
Ancestry also offers ‘Thrulines’, an attempt to suggest relationships between you and your matches based on both your trees and the trees of other users. Just like hints, it can be powerful but it is only as good as the data that’s been input into others trees. Errors abound, so use with caution.
All Websites Have Quirks
I’m lucky, I subscribe to both Ancestry and Find My Past. Here’s a few of the odd things I’ve found myself doing, utilising both sites functionality…
If I’m looking for someone on a census record, I normally search Ancestry first. I prefer the way they display the search results. I find it quicker to identify the individual I’m looking for among the results. I’ll only turn to FMP for an address search.
If I’m doing a general search for an individual across multiple data sets, I use FMP’s ‘search all’ function. You can search all records at Ancestry too. I just find FMP’s gives more targeted results. I also use FMP for searches of marriage registrations. It’s better at pairing up spouses. For parish marriages, I’ll search FMP but if I find a result I’ll then go look for it on Ancestry. This is simply because I prefer the way Ancestry allows you to view both original image and transcription at the same time. I also prefer its source layout. It’s easier for me to copy and paste into my desktop genealogy software.
I like the way that Ancestry displays more information on the search results page. For example, if you search for a baptism you can hover your mouse over each result to view more details (like parents names).
This saves me having to click into records to check them out individually. FMP does not do this anywhere near as well. HOWEVER, FMP allows you to sort your results – by name, date of birth, date of event or location. This is so helpful and I cannot understand why such a simple feature hasn’t been introduced on Ancestry.
Who Wins - Ancestry or Find My Past?
Are you still there? I know this has been a long post. I hope that I’ve illustrated that the question “which is better” is somewhat of a nonsense. Which site you’ll use largely depends on what data you want to access and your search results display preferences. One site is not better than the other. They are totally different offerings. Don’t get me wrong, in an ideal world, I’d love to marry off Ancestry and Find My Past. They’ walk off together, into the sunset, sharing their site features and records. FMP would be up to date with DNA and Ancestry would have fabulous customer service.
Let’s get real though, that’s highly unlikely to happen and if it did the site would be mega expensive! After all, competition helps to keep price points down.
So back in the world of reality, here’s my final thoughts. Ancestry is a titan and its really cornered the ability to combine DNA with UK research. But FMP is growing rapidly. Its seen the launch of some fantastic new data sets. Its upping its offering. I don’t see either of these giants going anywhere or working together. SO, if you have to decide between one of them, then you have to do your research. You have to really dive deep into those data sets and play with their functionality.
Subscribing to genealogy websites can be expensive, especially if you only want to answer one or two specific questions. Using a professional genealogist can sometimes be a great, more cost effective solution. It can be cheaper, and save you the time it would take to learn how to do it yourself. I no longer offer one-to-one services, but I highly recommend both Richard Holt and Joe Saunders.
Ancestry & Find My Past Links
If you’ve read this article and decided to subscribe to Find My Past then I’d be grateful if you could use the link below. This is an affiliate link and using it may earn me a small commission – all of which helps me to keep running my business and keep blogging useful posts (like this one!)
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