Ancestry.com...worth it?

[slothead]

Is it worth the money? Also, does it only really trace your ancestry in America unless you pay more to see foreign?

It is my opinion that the cost is worth it, at least initially (and you can usually find a cheap starting price), and it is true that you won't get international searches without paying the extra price for that extra service.

If you hit the searches hard up front, it is likely you can find answers and contacts within your first 6 months and then you may be able to work outside Ancestry to get more data. I think the secret is to message folks a lot and watch for their responses. Only one in a dozen will be of help (if that), so it pays to do it a lot. There are a lot of false alarms in the searches, so you have to watch the details carefully.

My biggest disappointment is that the early US census records (1790, 1800, 1810, 1820) only included the householder's name and only listed the ages of others in the household.