Just To Let You Know.......

[Fjgrogan]

I used to use Ancestry, but recently it has got increasingly complicated as it has tapped into more types of resources. I would recommend Family Tree Maker which has links to Ancestry anyway. I like FTM because it gives me the facility to print out tree charts in various forms (ancestors of X, descendants of X, etc), which Ancestry didn't - it will display a five generation pedigree, but in places I need 12 generations. With Ancestry you can subscribe to various grades - I upgraded to Worldwide because I have Irish ancestors who settled in the USA and it gave me access to censuses etc, (also those Finnish links!)but you can start off with a cheaper version and upgrade when you need to. On the other hand Genes Reunited is a dead loss, because they charge you extra for access to anything, BMD, censuses etc; but it has been handy for connecting out of the blue to stray relatives! (It is an offshoot of Friends Reunited) Be warned though that whatever software you get it is going to take a lot of time to enter all the data and it is very addictive! As for being usable by a stupid five-year-old - well, if I can manage it anyone can!!

[Jo]

H'm - I'm wary of risking losing 300 years of family history!

You're making me nervous - back up the family history immediately! Then check that you can read the backup. I like to back up to a CD or DVD so it is quite separate from the actual computer. If your hard disk should fail then the recovery partition may be lost as well.

Crikey - I hadn't spotted that. I assumed it was just some system files for recovery purposes but if you are backing up your own documents on another partition of the same hard disk, Mary is absolutely right. However..... I see you are wisely also backing it all up elsewhere

[sejintenej]

H'm - I'm wary of risking losing 300 years of family history!

You're making me nervous - back up the family history immediately! Then check that you can read the backup. I like to back up to a CD or DVD so it is quite separate from the actual computer. If your hard disk should fail then the recovery partition may be lost as well.

Crikey - I hadn't spotted that. I assumed it was just some system files for recovery purposes but if you are backing up your own documents on another partition of the same hard disk, Mary is absolutely right. However..... I see you are wisely also backing it all up elsewhere

Very true - the power supply of my UK PC has just failed so I cannot access the hard disk. I do copy a lot from one email account to another so I can download that but some has been lost (yes - I know that there are companies which will access the hard disk for me); that is abother risk

[Jo]

You could just get the power supply replaced. I had to have that done on my last PC and it wasn't a very big job.