Ancestry.com -6 month US Deluxe membership & Family Tree Maker 2012 Software Giveaway (Now Closed)

 

Creating a Family Tree for My Children

I have been a member of Ancestry.com for over 10 years. I’ve researched many sides of my family off and on, but once I had my children I really found a renewed interest in it. I guess you can say I have a strong desire to let my children know where we really come from. Because my husband is from Norway I feel like if something were to ever happen to me that they wouldn’t know my side of their ancestry & considering I’m not close with my in-laws I don’t know if they’d ever learn anything at all. I want to build something special for them in my spare time. A family tree. I’m hoping to eventually fill it all in with their Dad’s family as well. Maybe something that can be hung on the walls of their own homes when they get older.

 

Discovering Ancestors

It’s been such an interesting journey for me as I’ve found ancestors all across the world. I come from a very small family that’s very spread out & all of my Grandparents have passed on now so it’s such a joy to have a program like Ancestry.com where I can look into the past and see where they were born, when they got married, where they lived, and sometimes even find pictures of my ancestors. It’s just an awesome experience to look at these pictures and think “I’m related to this person” and a bit inspiring at times to see what they accomplished in their lifetime.

 

A couple things I’ve discovered: I may be related to Chief Pontiac (He’s the one Pontiac cars were named after) & my Grandma’s family helped to settle Detroit over 300 years ago. I’ve read tons of first hand accounts of battles between Indians & the French & British here in my area. I’ve discovered tons of French Canadian & metis heritage, as well as learning for the first time that I have British in me & that I’m related to some of the founding fathers of our country. I’ve gone back over 500 years. On top of all of these amazing discoveries I’ve discovered actual living cousins that I never knew I had & talked to them through the site. I even found out that I am related to one of my online friends from Quebec!

Ancestry DNA

ancestrycomdnaNow I am taking another big step in discovering my ancestry by doing a DNA test.  I just received my kit on Friday. I had signed up quite a few months ago on a list & was just recently sent my kit. Their DNA test program is still in Beta so I feel really lucky that I’m getting to be one of the first ones to try it.

 

I have to tell you though I’m so excited that I can barely wait. when I was growing up I always wanted to study archaeology & paleontology so being able to get into this in the comfort of my own home is really fun & educational for me. There’s also the fact that because my Mom & Dad were never married I just don’t have a lot of info on my Dad’s side of the family. Him & I are just now starting to build a real relationship after all these years. He’s not into this stuff as much so it’s hard to get a lot direct details out of him.. it will be nice to at least have an idea about the other half of me.

 

Apparently it takes 6-8 weeks to get your test results.  Besides seeing where some of my ancestors originated I will be able to connect with other people on the site who have also taken the DNA test & who are related to me in some way. It’s all very private & you actually can hide a lot of your info so that no one but yourself can view it, and it only matches people who are related. So it’s not like a random stranger can peer into your life. 

 

Create Something Special For Your Children

There is such a wealth of information on Ancestry.com  I have literally spent 100’s of hours on their site over the past 10 years. The deeper you dig, the more you find, the more excited you get. It’s never a dull moment. Right now on the site they just made available the census of 1940 which has tons of useful information. I was able to locate where my Grandparents both lived before they were married & built the house that I currently live in.

I encourage you as a parent to check out Ancestry.com if you haven’t already. It only takes a bit of information before you can get started. They have free accounts as well as paid. Something for everyone.


Ancestry.com Giveaway

As an Ancestry Ace I am here to help you learn more about Ancestry.com. I hope you enjoyed this post and have a little more inspiration to delve into your own families history.  To get you started Ancestry.com is graciously providing a 6 month U.S. Deluxe Membership & a copy of Family Tree Maker 2012 for 1 lucky reader! Enter below!


 

Prize: 1 reader will receive a 6 month U.S. Deluxe Membership & 1 copy of Family Tree Maker 2012 software for PC or Mac! (An over $200 value)

 

How to Enter: Just scroll down to the comment section directly on this blog and leave a comment telling me why you’d like to win this giveaway. Will you research your Great Grandfather? Do you want to fill in your tree for your kids? Is your Dad a history buff ?After you leave a comment then fill out the Rafflecopter form (it will pop up after a minute). Any questions just leave a comment or ask on Facebook.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Good Luck!

 

 

Disclosure: I am receiving the above software as a courtesy of holding this giveaway for my readers. My experience & opinions are my own & yours may vary. As an Ancestry Ace I may occasionally bring you more posts and exciting giveaways like this one!

20 Comments

  1. I would research my father’s sidem of the family. I know almost nothing from that side of the family and my father passed away before I could get any information as did his father when he was young. I would love for my daughter to know her roots.

  2. I did a family tree for a college class, but would love to be able to dig deeper and research it more.

  3. My husband is actually working on a family tree with an iphone app but I would love to win this for him so he can dig deeper into our family roots 🙂

  4. I would like to fill in the holes in our family tree to make it complete for my children

  5. I would absolutely love this! My dad passed away when I was pretty young and genealogy was one of his favorite hobbies… unfortunately all his years of research were lost. I’ve been wanting to start over as a tribute to him and to pass down our family’s history to my son.

  6. Meghann Hollingshead

    I would love to learn more about my husbands side and also my side of the family for our kids! My side has French and Norwegian descendants and my husband has Greek. It would be so much fun!

  7. before i got married I really worked on the family genealogy. it’s sat on the bookshelf for 6 years. I know there has to be alot more digitized records that could help my dead ends, so Id love to win to try to solve them!

  8. I would love to be able to research my mothers side of the family. He fathers side was supposed to be French-Canadian Indian but nobody knows what tribe or anything else. I would love to find out where my great grandparents came from.

  9. This would be an awesome present to give to my 82 yr old grandma, her family tree. She has been wanting to know about it.

  10. I didn’t know much about my family history until recently. I’d like to dig deeper and be able to pass it along to my son.

  11. I would like to research my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. She moved away from my grandmother and her sibling when they were young and never returned. I want to see if she had any more children after she left and see who her parents were.

  12. I am 77. believe it would be interesting if I could find out something. I signed up once a few years ago but had trouble trying to make it work. I am not computer smart. Do not remember w2hat I paid. So gave it up.

  13. Being a descendant of share croppers following slavery, it will be interesting to be able to to follow the lineage of my family.

  14. My grandfather put together a history of our family in the 1950’s all the way back to the 1600’s. I’d like to transfer that information into a computerized version and fill in the blanks from the 1950’s on.

  15. I will be researching my mother’s family tree, because my grandmother’s mother passed away and she was raised by a stepmother and her mother parents were white and native american

  16. I really need this! I had a membership for a while but couldn’t afford it due to financial difficulties…my family tree on my dad’s side is eastern european and a deluxe membership could really help. I want to honor my grandmother who recently passed.

  17. I would research my father’s family. We have been able to find information about my grandfather’s actual birth and his family, so we think he may have changed his name.

  18. I want to begin researching my mother’s side of the family not alot of data on them so far, see my great-grandfather on US census, that’s about it. So that’s why this prize would be awesome.

  19. christine jessamine

    all of your questions are right on. my dad, is first off extremely into geneology. he is obsessed with it. I have seen advertisements for ancestry.com and have been extremely interested in it. it is important to know where you come from. great giveaway

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