Ancestry.com World Membership worth it?

[vafoodie]

My father was Filipino, so I'm interested in tracking down as much as I can. Anyone else have much luck tracking down info from an country that probably didn't have great records--especially during the Japanese occupation.

 

[Katsmeow]

I have the All Access membership which is a tier up from World Explorer (includes some content from Fold3 and Newspaper.com).

The World membership does have records from other countries which is helpful for researching out the US. That said, there isn't really much on there.

There are according to Ancestry these records:

select births and baptisms 1642-1994 (953205 records)
select deaths and burials 1726-1957 (5 million+ records)
Select marriages 1723-1957 (about 4.5 million records)
Phillipines, Jewish Refugees 1937-1941 (1318 records)

You might subscribe to the world membership for a month and see if it is valuable to you.


There are also some military records from the Spanish American War and Phillipine insurrection.


There are some Philippines records also familysearch.org which is free to use. You may want to search there also.

 

[vafoodie]

Oooh good to know r/o

Sadly, I waited too long to pick my dad's brain about his parents. I could barely get their middle names out of him, much less grandparents. At one point he was all about telling me about his grandfather fighting in the Spanish-American War, but I was a dumb teenager then and not curious like I am now.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

To get you started on familysearch here’s a link to what they have in their catalog for the Philippines. You’ll need to sign up for a free membership.

https://www.familysearch.org/search...LE_EAST,placeId:1927042,region:PACIFIC_ISLAND

People sometimes criticize family search because the tree is common to all users and subject to errors entered by sometimes amateurish researchers. Despite that, I find it very useful especially for finding sources. I really haven’t found much on ancestry that I didn’t already have from FS. YMMV

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I neglected to add that I don’t research records outside the USA and former colonies. Yet, anyway.

 

[Katsmeow]

Sadly, I waited too long to pick my dad's brain about his parents. I could barely get their middle names out of him, much less grandparents. At one point he was all about telling me about his grandfather fighting in the Spanish-American War, but I was a dumb teenager then and not curious like I am now.

There might be something on that on Ancestry as they do have some Spanish American war records.

 

[Sunset]

Sadly, I waited too long to pick my dad's brain about his parents. I could barely get their middle names out of him, much less grandparents. At one point he was all about telling me about his grandfather fighting in the Spanish-American War, but I was a dumb teenager then and not curious like I am now.

This is so true, about so many folks, they never bother to ask until it's too late.

I did that with my adoptive Dad, I neglected to ask and he died when I was 26. I have basically nothing on his family history.

 

[SecondAttempt]

My father was Filipino, so I'm interested in tracking down as much as I can. Anyone else have much luck tracking down info from an country that probably didn't have great records--especially during the Japanese occupation.

My partner is about half filipino. I have the World membership and in general find it worth it. But for the Phillipines you'll be better off on familysearch which is free. I have found things on familysearch that are not on Ancestry even though they generally access the same records.

 

[SecondAttempt]

My father was Filipino, so I'm interested in tracking down as much as I can. Anyone else have much luck tracking down info from an country that probably didn't have great records--especially during the Japanese occupation.

I actually find it a little hard to believe that records are poor in the Phillipines. They were Spanish until 1898 the part of the United States until the 40s. The Spanish kept good records. Being part of the US actually works against you becuase there are few immigration records because they were US citizens. I am wondering if they have privacy laws or something that restrict access to records rather than records not existing.