Ancestry vs Family Search

I have had a subscription to Ancestry for a number of years.  When they initiated the Canadian site, I quickly signed up as much of my family tree is Canadian.  I was surprised that most of the databases, at least at that time, was fairly Ontario centric.  But that was okay as the majority of my Canadian ancestors remained in Ontario with only a few migrating out west.

As time went on, I started researching branches that were located in the United States or United Kingdom.  I attempted to make use of the the Library Edition of Ancestry at the Kingston Public Library, but having gotten accustomed to searching Ancestry any time day or night when I had an individual's record on the screen, booking a hour or two at a public library just wasn't cutting it.  Especially when the branch closest to my house only allowed downloading to 3.5" floppy. (Yes, I was doing the research that long ago!)  Not many images could be saved to a disk.

So I upgraded to the World edition of Ancestry and have continued to allow my membership to be renewed each year - viewing it as a birthday gift.  It averages out to approximately a dollar a day - well worth it to my research.

At the same time as I was exploring Ancestry, I was also exploring free sites, including FamilySearch.  But I have continued to use Ancestry as my prime source for Birth, Marriage, Death and census records as the records are indexed (albeit sometimes questionable) with links to images of the actual document.  Even if the link was to Library and Archives Canada site, LAC usually does not provide an index.  To locate the specific image on the LAC site, one would need to search in the same fashion as one would do on microfilm but without having to load and crank the microfilm roll.

Sometimes, an image would be available on FamilySearch via a link from the index but not always.  Genealogy "experts" are always stressing the need to view the original source.  So I continue to be willing to pay a subscription to Ancestry for that priviledge.

BUT....

At the Ontario Genealogy Society conference this past weekend, it was announced that FamilySearch.org now has an arrangement with the Archives of Ontario to provide digitized copies of the Birth, Marriages and Deaths.  When I read the announcement, the dates listed for the three databases did not cover the most recent years available via Ancestry.  So I figured I would continue my current search methods with Ancestry as my priority.

One negative with Ancestry (beside the previously mentioned questionable indexing) is that sometimes only the left side of the double page ledgers were digitized.  Quite often, I have only been able to get part of the information for the event.  I would make note of that in my records, but it was frustrating: marriage records with only the county and not the city/township information, the actual record number, witnesses, etc.  Similar if the event was birth or death.

Last night when I encountered this situation in the case of a birth record, I decided to search that individual in FamilySearch.  Lo and behold, the individual's birth record was at the top of the list of hits and with fingers crossed, I clicked on the link for the image.  Not only was the right side of the ledger digitized, but the image of the left side was a clearer copy than what Ancestry offered.

For now, I will still continue with my subscription to Ancestry.  There are many other databases offered on that site that I do not believe are offered by FamilySearch.  But it is nice to know that "missing" information may be obtainable from FamilySearch.