Australian electoral rolls - what a swiz!

[niftynannie]

I will also be sending Ancestry a letter.Totally unfair as there is so little on line for Australia and i do not have any American lines to follow so do not want to subscribe for the world ancestry.

[Mary from Italy]

Just in case anyone's interested they've reduced the price of the World sub for existing subscribers - if I remember rightly it's come down from £199 to £149. I still think it's too much, though.

[vikki brace]

don't know if it will help but they are offering a 14 day free trial to all Ancestry.com.au collections

Genealogy, Family Trees and Family History Records online - Ancestry.com.au

[Ozzie Gert]

I didn't even know there was one. What's it supposed to include?

Sorry Mary, I`ve only just found this again, it gives you the UK heritage collection for $19-95 against about $24 with the exchange rate if you go through the UK site

Sylvia

[Snowdrops in Bloom]

Maybe Ancestry needs to go along the lines of say, Sky.

You get a basic package (such as the English census etc) then you can have any one additional collection for say, £20 per year. Any two additional different collections for £30 and so on.

Then each year you could pick and choose your combination - I'm sure with today's technology it should be feasible to do.

[Mary from Italy]

I wrote to Ancestry about this.

They first replied to say that I'd have to get the World sub if I wanted access to the Australian electoral rolls and Sands as well as the UK censuses. I asked if they couldn't offer an in-between solution that included just the UK and Australian databases, and they've just sent this reply:

I will pass your request onto Marketing regarding the option for membership. When your membership in May is up you can cancel the UK Deluxe and sign up for the Australian Deluxe and that will give you access to both sites.

I've written back to ask them what the Australian Deluxe sub includes, and how much it currently costs. Has anyone else heard of it? I tried logging out and going to ancestry.com.au, but it only offers World Heritage membership.

[KiteRunner]

The £50 off the Annual World Membership is an offer which only lasts until the 28th Feb 2008 (don't know why it's not the 29th!) and doesn't apply to people who already have an annual world membership.

I tried to view an Australian electoral roll entry to see what it would suggest I upgrade to, but confusingly, it asked me to upgrade to UK membership! I had a little panic wondering if my sub had lapsed, but it says it's still running, so I think they may be in a bit of a muddle about the Aussie stuff.

[Mary from Italy]

I tried to view an Australian electoral roll entry to see what it would suggest I upgrade to, but confusingly, it asked me to upgrade to UK membership!

That happened to me as well. I tried 2 or 3 times - sometimes it told me I had to upgrade to World membership, and sometimes to UK, which I already have.

Anyway, Ancestry have now replied, as follows:

The annual cost for the Australian Deluxe (UK Heritage Collection) cost $149.95 Australian Dollars. This gives you access to the AU and UK sites.

That works out at £66.68, which sounds reasonable.

Does anyone else have that subscription, and does it include full access to the electoral rolls and Sands?

[Christine in Herts]

At that price, it's cheaper than basic UK membership!

Christine

[Mary from Italy]

Well, they renewed mine last year for £55, but I know the current UK rate is a good bit more. I wonder if it depends which country you're in? They presumably know I'm not in Australia, though, because they quoted the date when my current subscription expires, so they would have seen that I paid in euros.