Using any new set of records can be challenging, but when you begin crossing borders and venturing into other countries, it can be even more so. Last week Ancestry announced the launch of sites in France and Italy. With the announcement I heard from quite a few people with questions about the new sites. With that in mind, this week I thought we’d go over some basics, and I’ll share some tips for getting the most from the new sites.
Memberships
Individuals with World Deluxe memberships through Ancestry.com, Ancestry.co.uk, or any other Ancestry portal can access the new data on these sites. You can check your subscription or upgrade to World Deluxe by logging in to Ancestry and then clicking on My Account in the upper right corner of the screen. The next page will tell you what subscription you have and how to upgrade.
Accessing Through Your “Home†Portal
When the site went up, I’m sorry that I neglected to mention an important point. All of this data is available to you through your home portal, that is, the site you have subscribed through. The Ancestry.it, Ancestry.fr, Ancestry.de and other ethnic portals are geared towards users in those countries, with subscription options in local currency, and obviously are in the home country’s native language.
However, you can access all of the databases for those sites through your home site. Just click on the Search tab and the select the appropriate region in the lower left corner of that page, followed by the country of your choice. Accessing the databases in this manner will allow you to browse the database titles that are available and read the descriptions in your native language.
You can log in to the European portal sites and search through them as well, allowing you to weed out unwanted hits from databases from your home country. If you open a window in each, you can even bounce back and forth to look up database descriptions in English, for example, while searching through the Ancestry.it Italian website. Continue reading →