Paying for Genealogy Websites?

Genealogy is the number one use for the internet.  Surprised?  I would have thought it was Facebook or Youtube but actually in terms of a general purpose, more genealogy is done online than any other hobby or pastime.

At some point in your genealogical journeys you're going to come across websites that want you to pay for access to their services (Ancestry.com for example).

Some websites are completely worth paying for (Ancestry.com for example). (Before you spend the full money on Ancestry, check out the Oregon Genealogy Forum where with membership you get an Ancestry subscription for a fraction of the cost)

Others?  Well, it depends.

On what, you ask?

Well it depends on your focus, your needs and your purposes.

My genealogy?  I'm primarily interested in getting enough documentation to submit names to the temples and just document a family tree while focusing on the low-hanging-fruit, while stories and photos are optional bonuses for me.  That means I find a lot of readily available info through obituaries, censuses and headstones that are publicly available and don't require me to become a Genealogy-Jedi specializing in Scottish-Clan-History.

For all of this, in terms of paid subscriptions I get along very well with an Ancestry.com and Archives.com subscriptions, use my Multnomah County Library Card for newspaper archive access online, and my free account at Findagrave and a bunch of other websites (at the right of the page) and I'm good to go.  I don't use Archives very much or get too much from it, but it was a fairly cheap subscription for a year and I've gotten a few things from it.

If you want actual copies of documents such as death certificates, you're usually going to have to pay for those from the State Archives, though you can go in person to the Capitol here in Oregon in the Archives and just pay for the copies - cheaper than ordering them online - more work but worth it.

Here's the guidelines I use on investments (or other endeavors) to determine whether it's a good investment and this works for genealogy as well.  It's called the NUDE model (it could be called the DUNE model so as not to offend sensibilities, but in my business line we tend to assess novelty before dependability because then we know what we're talking about first so we can decide if its useful next - the order is a progressive order this way).

To subscribe or not to subscribe, that's the question

• N = Novelty - how unique is what I'm paying for?  If you can get it somewhere else for free (New Family Search?) why pay for it?  Is their stuff so rare you can't get it anywhere else and do you NEED it?

• U=Utility - how useful is it?  It might be cool for genealogy but is it going to help you?  It might be rare but is it useful?

• D=Dependability - does it do what it says it will for what you need?

• E=Economy - do you get what you pay for?

Remember again, there are tens-of-millions of genealogy websites.  If you're going to pay for something, make sure you're going to use it, need it and can't get the stuff anywhere else for less.
I.E. don't pay $100 for a website that has only one document you're going to use unless you need to.

When you're brand new it might be tempting to throw money at every website that comes along (or be overwhelmed because you can't afford to) to find what you need, but as your experience increases you'll learn more what you absolutely need and what you do not.