Comprehensive and well-organized handbook for ancestry.com.

The Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com is a wellspring of knowledge about how find your ancestors more efficiently. Beginning with a simple description of ancestry.com’s menu, this book then drills down past the site’s hint system into the databases themselves. Here is a list of some of the items covered:

• Family trees
• Why genealogy software is worth the money
• When to use other genealogy websites
• Free forms to use from another website
• Why, despite what your grandma keeps insisting, you cannot be related to George Washington
• Census and voter lists
• Birth, marriage and death records
• Military
• Immigration and travel
• Newspaper and other publications
• Pictures
• Stories, memories and histories
• Maps, atlases and gazetteers
• Schools, directories and church histories
• Wills, probate, land, tax and criminal
• Reference, dictionaries and almanacs
• DNA matches and circles
• Associated sites Fold3 and newspapers.com

If you have ever used ancestry.com, you know it is just an intimidating mass of information. Using the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com makes taming the data beast much easier. After using the book, I have found ancestors who immigrated from England and Ireland. I found a relative who died in a confederate prison and a bunch who came home safely from virtually every war from the Revolutionary to the Korean. I even found a picture of a relative during the depression.

The Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com is highly recommended. 5 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Family Tree Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

It's only been 3 and a half years since the first edition came out, but that is time enough for a LOT of changes in the website. Comparing the table of contents from the first and second editions reveals that this is not just an update, but a major overhaul. One major change is the addition of a substantial section on Ancestry.com DNA testing and evaluating. I especially appreciated the step by step instructions on syncing the RootsMagic software with Ancestry.com, very helpful. I managed to learn a lot about using Ancestry.com in the year and a half that I have been using it, but realize that if I had used the Unofficial Guide to begin with, I could have saved so much time. Don't make that mistake!
(Thanks to Family Tree Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy.)

Ancestry is an amazing site! I've been exploring it for about three years now and am nowhere near covering all I want! This book i a Godsend! I had no idea all the stuff in the book was on Amazon! I've been searching randomly and this book certainly gives me some organized means of sorting through all the data Ancestry offers. Anyone who is interested in searching for ancestors will benefit from using this book. It contains lots of useful info to guide users through the site. Very well researched and organized.

I’ve been using Ancestry.com for a years and thought this book might have some hidden gems as to how to use the online family tree. Sadly for me there wasn’t anything new, but for newcomers to Ancestry.com, this book has great information on how to start, what information to gather and to use the website.

This is an excellent resource when using Ancestry.com. It is easy to understand and full of information. It makes working on genealogy online much easier!

O am an adviser of Ancestry.com so I know that this book will be extremely helpful in getting around the site in a more proficient manner.

I received an ARC from NetGalley on this book. I was excited to read it because I have been working on my family tree for months. Typical for me, I read no directions before starting in - just winged it - so it was nice now to have some input from someone who actually knows what they are doing on the thing! I learned some slick new tips as well as what I was doing right on the site. The book covers things like how to read birth and death records, looking at voter records and newspapers, as well as understanding DNA results if you also submit that to go with your tree. There are parts that might be overwhelming for a newbie (even I didn't understand a couple sections) but it gives a great overview so people can use it as a guide in reference to whatever stage they are in. Great genealogy book.

I have been using Ancestry to research my family tree for over a year now, so I was keen to see what the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com had to offer. It is certainly very thorough, covering everything from setting up your tree to searching within the various catalogues. Though aimed at the US site, the bulk of the information will be relevant for users elsewhere in the world too. For the most part, I would say it is of greater benefit to those just starting out with their research, since much of the site navigation etc. I had already worked out for myself after 14 months using it. However, it did offer me a few nuggets of useful advice, such as making use of the card catalogue. Overall, the book is nicely laid out, with helpful illustrations and examples. It is a book that you can read cover to cover or simply dip into to find a particular piece of information. I would certainly recommend it to those new to Ancestry who wish to get their research off to a good start and avoid the pitfalls such as giving too much credence to other peoples' trees or accepting every hint as fact. 4.5 stars.

This book covers from A to Z: creating a new tree, how to use the website and how perform searches in practical resources.