Category Archives: Deals

Win a Free Trip to Your Family’s Homeland

Deals,

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?


FamilyTreeDNA 2011 Holiday Sale

Deals, ,

I’ve discussed genetic genealogy a few times before (in this introduction to a previous sale, and in an article on Y-DNA and mtDNA). If you’ve been interested in trying it out, you can take advantage of FamilyTreeDNA’s Holiday Sale through the end of December. Examples of price reductions include:

Y-DNA37 for $119 instead of $169 ($50 off) – men only
Y-DNA67 for $199 instead of $268 ($69 off) – men only

mtDNAFullSequence for $239 instead of $299 ($60 off) – men and women

FamilyFinder for $199 instead of $289 ($90 off) – men and women

FamilyFinder + Y-DNA37 for $318 instead of $438 ($120 off) – men only
FamilyFinder + mtDNAPlus for $318 instead of $428 ($120 off) – men and women
FamilyFinder + mtDNAFullSequence for $435 instead of $559 ($124 off) – men and women

SuperDNA (Y-DNA67 + mtDNAFullSequence) for $438 instead of $548 ($110 off) – men only
Comprehensive Genome (SuperDNA + FamilyFinder) for $627 instead of $837 ($210 off) – men only

No special coupon is needed. Just go to the Products page and the price reductions should already be shown.

If you’ve successfully used DNA testing to further your genealogy research, post about it in the comments.

Ancestry.com 15 Days of Free Access and Prizes

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Ancestry.com is in the middle of a 15 day celebration of their 15th anniversary. They are making one data collection free each day between the 1st and 15th of October (thus they are a little over half way through) and they are giving away a prize each day, and a grand prize after the 15th (going behind the scenes of the NBC TV show Who Do You Think You Are? with Lisa Kudrow). Each collection they make available for free remains free through October 15th, so you can access all the ones made available so far:

Oct 1 – Social Security Death Index
Oct 2 – Ireland, Griffith’s Valuation, 1848–1864
Oct 3 – California Marriage Index, 1960–1985
Oct 4 – Bavaria, Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914–1918 (in German)
Oct 5 – 1920 U.S. Federal Census
Oct 6 – Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903–1980
Oct 7 – Texas Birth Index, 1903–1997
Oct 8 – Sweden, Births from the Swedish Death Index, 1947–2006 (in Swedish)
Oct 9 – World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918

More collections will be made available Oct 10-15.

Today’s collection, WWI Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 is a particularly interesting collection if your family lived in the US during WWI, as all males were registered (even if they were unable to be soldiers) and the registration cards can provide information on where the person was living, where they were born, etc. I discuss these draft cards in my article Finding Information on US Immigrants.

To access these collections, go to the Ancestry 15th Anniversary Collections page.

From that page you can also click on the link (and orange button that says Enter Now) to take you to the daily sweepstakes page where they are giving away a prize every day until the 15th (and then the aforementioned grand prize to go behind the scenes on the NBC TV show Who Do You Think You Are?).

Today’s prize is an iPad 2…

36 Hour FamilyTreeDNA Sale

Deals, ,

Celebrating reaching 15,000 fans on Facebook, FamilyTreeDNA is having a 36-hour sale on their genetic genealogy tests. FamilyTreeDNA has previously had sales when they reached 5,000 and 10,000 fans. Unlike those earlier sales, there is no special code needed for this sale. Discounts are as much as $200 (for the Comprehensive Genome bundle).

I’ve previously written about using genetic tests for genealogy, first briefly when FamilyTreeDNA had their 10,000 fan sale, and then again in more detail in my article Using DNA for Genealogy: Y-DNA and mtDNA.

The sale ends midnight on Tuesday, September 27th (Central Time).

Their official announcement:

Thank you for helping us reach 15,000 LIKES on our Facebook page! To show how much we like you too we’re offering a 36-HOUR SALE! Please help us spread the word!*

Start: Monday, September 26 (TODAY) at 12:00pm CDT
End: Tuesday, September 27 at 11:59pm CDT

For NEW customers:
Y-DNA 12 . . . $59 (was $99) (via projects only)
mtDNA . . . $59 (was $99) (via projects only)

Y-DNA 37 . . . $129 (was $149)
Family Finder . . . $199 (was $289)
mtFullSequence (FGS) . . . $229 (was $299)

Y-DNA 12 + mtDNA . . . $118 (was $179) (via projects only)
Family Finder + Y-DNA 12 . . . $248 (was $339)
Family Finder + mtDNA . . . $248 (was $339)

Family Finder + Y-DNA 37 . . . $328 (was $438)
Family Finder + mtFullSequence . . . $398 (was $559)
Comprehensive Genome (Family Finder + mtFullSequence + Y-DNA67) . . . $597 (was $797)

Upgrades & Add-Ons for CURRENT customers:
mtDNA add-on $59 . . . (was $89)
mtFullSequence upgrade (HVR1 to Mega) . . . $199 (was $269)
mtFullSequence upgrade (HVR2 to Mega) . . . $199 (was $239)
mtFullSequence add-on . . . $219 (was $289)
Family Finder add-on . . . $199 (was $289)

Prices will be automatically adjusted on the Family Tree DNA website — no coupon code needed! Important: Promotional orders need to be paid for by the end of this sale. Visit us at http://www.familytreedna.com/ to order now.

We hope this limited-time sale will give you yet another reason to “LIKE” us!

Thank you for your support!

Family Tree DNA
___________________________________

This offer ends TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27th, 2011 11:59pm CDT.

* You do not need to be a member of Facebook to take advantage of this offer. Payment must be received at the time of your order. Valid only on products listed. No substitutions. No adjustments will be made on previous purchases. This promotion is not valid in combination with any other promotions. Family Tree DNA reserves the right to cancel any order due to unauthorized or ineligible use of discounts and to modify or cancel these promotional discounts due to system error or unforeseen problems. Subject to change without notice.

Have you used genetic tests for genealogy from FamilyTreeDNA or other companies? What has been your experience, good or bad? Have you made connections to cousins using genetic genealogy? Share your experiences in the comments.

Free Access to Ancestry.com’s Immigration and Travel Records

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For the next week, through September 5th, Ancestry.com is offering free access to their worldwide Immigration and Travel records. For those who do not have Ancestry.com membership, this means you can now find a tremendous number of records including passenger manifests, passport applications, naturalization records, etc.

Even if you have a US membership, this free week includes some records normally only available to those with the more expensive World membership, and includes records from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Mexico.

As an example of the use of these international records, if you find a record of someone who arrived in NY from Hamburg (a common point of departure from Europe in the 19th century), be sure to search for the corresponding record in Ancestry’s Hamburg passenger records, which will show the original passenger manifest from when they left Hamburg, which may give additional information on the individual you are researching.

To access these free records, go to:

http://www.ancestry.com/immigration

Good luck finding records. If you find something really interesting, tell people about it in the comments below.