I don’t post a lot of commercial links in my blog, except if it is to an offer for a discount I think would benefit my readers. I’m making an exception here, because, well, I think its pretty cool. Many people who research their own genealogy would love to go visit the countries where their families came from, but cannot afford to do so. However, if someone paid for your trip, you’d probably go, right?

The TV show Who Do You Think You Are? is coming back for a third season this week, and Ancestry.com (who is a sponsor of the show) is launching a sweepstakes offering free trips to three winners to go back to their ancestral homelands and uncover their family’s histories. United States residents only, sorry to my many readers in other countries. They value this prize at $10,000 for each winner. The prize includes a trip for two to the winner’s homeland, hotels and $2,000 cash, a six-month World Explorer membership to Ancestry.com and an Ancestry.com  DNA test. No mention of any professional help when you get to your ancestral homeland – that would have been a nice touch…

One thing I need to say. Six months, really? Sorry, as much as I like the idea of the trip, what’s with the six month membership? You’re giving away a $10,000 prize and you can’t spring for a full year membership which costs you nothing? They don’t even offer six month subscriptions on their web site – a year costs $300/year and a month-to-month subscription costs $35/month.

In addition, 20 other people will win six-month World Explorer subscriptions. I guess that’s valued at $150? ($149.70 according to the rules I just looked at…)

Anyways, to enter the contest, you can click on the image below. I think you need to sign up for a free Ancestry.com account, which means they can e-mail you, etc. as part of the deal, but it doesn’t cost any money to enter.

Oh, and if you win, I expect a write-up of your trip to post here on this blog. That’s fair, right?