Thinking of taking advantage of this offer about a free 14 day trial so I can do abit of research on my family. To enable me to do this I have to register and give card details if I don't inform them after 14 days they will take a subscription obviously. Has anybody done this trial and are there no problems as long as you inform them before the trial ends you don't wish to continue? Always worry that once you give them your details it's hard to stop money going out.

No, Cools . I have often thought about it, but held back in case I forgot to inform them, as it's not so cheap.
It is an absolute pain now though, as nearly everything seems to lead to Ancestry. When I started mine everything was free, and so it still should be, if it's online.

Why should it be free just because it is online? Surely the company have lots of costs to set it up,systems to be analysed, programmed,tested. Online sites, advertising, support to be paid for.Until is up and running well there will be little or no advertising revenue and in the meantime mouths have to be fed and mortgages paid etc.

I had a "lifetime membership" rewarded to me at one time - apparently I must have expired at some point.

Because initially, there was no need for a company ! The records were there to be found. FreeBMD are as the title says, Free, Familysearch, is free and if we go to the libraries, the census are all free, and so is the IGI.
Ancestry have gleaned all the information and started charging.

Ancestry.com : Ancestry.com LLC is a privately held Internet company based in Lehi, Utah, United States. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world

It's a hard one isn't it? Looked on these sites that offer free but quite hard to follow and ancestry seems to give alot of pointers to help you as I haven't got much idea and very little details on my family. Longevity doesn't run in my family so no one to ask. Might take the plunge and make sure I cancel before time up. Thanks for your input.

When I first started researching my family tree, I too, was wary of giving my card details. However I took the plunge and did the 14 day free trial, cancelling it a day or two before the trial ended. I didn't experience any issues at all. And Findmypast do similar trials - same thing, just untick auto-renew and you are ok.

I will say for ancestry - that when I did have a problem they sorted it out straight away. I'd paid for a sub and I'd checked it wouldn't renew itself. But when I got my bank statement I saw that they had taken a payment, therefore renewing the subscription. I calmly explained to them that I hadn't wished to continue and told them they could clearly see I hadn't looked at any further genealogy records since the renewal date; as I hadn't, thinking my sub had ended, so they apologised and refunded me the money. No messing around.

Ancestry and FMP have different records too, so it depends on what county etc you are looking for. Good luck in your research, hope you find plenty of 'facts'. It is addictive!!

Got to admit that I'm not comfortable with companies that sell information that is either already in the public domain or out of copyright.

Ancestry must be doing something right, they get about $685m revenue a year and over half of that is profit. I consider it way over-priced but if people are paying it then it must be the market rate?

Thanks geprgie for your advice thats very helpful, and it's nice to hear someone who has used it say it's OK. May go ahead and see what I can find out. Thanks everyone.

If you go to your library, it's free for the first half hour, then I think it's 50p per half hour, I haven't been for a long time so I'm not sure about the 50p. I also did the 14 day free trial a few years ago without any problems, whichever you choose spend a bit of time beforehand sorting out the questions and people you're researching.

Thanks Loco, have been library today spent about 2 hours there and managed to find some info which was quite good,it's quite exciting when you think you are onto something. It's 75pence a half hour which is very reasonable and I was able to print stuff off so think I will carry on digging using library for now.

Interesting, the Wirral Library's website says ....


and

You did get the first half hour free DD but as far as I'm aware it was 75 pence after unless I misheard, I suppose these days they can't be free we lucky to have them still open.

I was picking up that they state/imply its free for findmypast but charge for general computer access. Half an hour of genealogy is a trivial amount of time.

Half an hour is nothing . They may charge for the micro-fiche machines too, and of course, I suppose they have to make sure that everyone get's the availability, otherwise you'd get some slug attached to it,.. all day.

I assume you have to book in advance now ?

The cost of the computer access is quite expensive when you think about it. Probably used by many who cannot afford to pay for their own internet. Job searching can also take a massive amount of time.