Review by Dave Edmiston

This is such a great tool for researching your roots and recording your family tree. These are two distinct tasks: researching and recording. Researching your background is where you find relatives you never knew you had. Recording is where you save the results of your research and report them to your future generations.

The 90-day free access to the Ancestry genealogy records is outstanding. After 90 days, there is a monthly fee and the fee is pretty significant. Check their website for pricing.

One misconception about the research service is that you can find your living and recent relatives. I don’t know all the details, but there are privacy restrictions that prevent the web service from giving you info on living people.

All in all, the software tool and the online service are really incredible, but they’re not cheap. I recommend you don’t activate the 90 day service until you know your calendar is free enough that you’ll be able to actually use it. Otherwise, you won’t get the full benefit from the service before your 90 days elapse.

Researching your family’s past really is an incredible journey. My mother traced one branch of our tree back to the Mayflower. Obviously this research wasn’t simple. I can’t even imagine how much easier it would have been for her with a product like this.

Have fun with your personal history!