Our Amazon Genealogy Top Picks
Our Top Genealogy Picks from Amazon
Here at Family History Gifts we have personally curated and chosen what we think are the best genealogy products from Amazon.co.uk. We have invested our time finding what we think is best for you and will receive a small commission for our recommendations, and so we hope you find them useful!
They range from charts and recording information sheets to books and DNA testing – all of which will make excellent gifts or ancestry stocking fillers for the new or established family historian.
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Charts and Record Information Sheets
It is easy to believe that most genealogists operate solely online and therefore do not need accessories such as charts, notebooks or genealogy forms. However it is still very difficult to keep track of 100s of ancestors and relatives without some other system of recording, particularly if we want to take our family tree information to the library or record office.
Record office visits are still necessary when there is such a small percentage of digitised records online. Therefore taking forms and notebooks to the record office can be vital, as well as having charts that can be used like whiteboards.
Genealogists fill in charts while they are researching to help them maintain focus, even though they know the chart may change when they receive a new piece of information. Charts are also portable and can be taken to the library or record office.
Family Trees are fluid documents so give them a couple of copies of a chart they can work with when they’re researching or a record book for keeping their information in order!
Folders and Preservation Materials
As with the charts and record information sheets, genealogists need to store their documents somewhere. Documents should be kept in acid free environments so we recommend the acid free sleeves. The certificate folders are a must for storing birth, marriage, and death certificates!
Photo Albums
These family tree themed photo albums are a great place to store family treasures!
DNA for Genealogy
There is more than one Ancestry test available. The most famous being the one offered by Ancestry.co.uk which tests the recipient’s autosomal chromosomes and promises to provide an ethnicity estimate and ‘cousin’ matches, but is it the best test available?
It certainly has the largest database (18 million tests, July 2020), however does it have all the tools? Some would argue that it doesn’t. It does not provide X matches nor does it currently provide a chromosome browser.
Arguably, the second most popular test is the one by My Heritage (seen below) which does have a chromosome browser, as does 23andMe (also see below). The ability to access a chromosome browser, which can help discover how we are related to some of our DNA matches, is a vital tool for some individuals.
All tests have the ability to group matches (which is also important) and will provide ethnicity estimates. With regards to the latter, it is important to remember it is indeed an estimate and might be incorrect, so if you are considering buying a test for that reason, be careful. From a UK viewpoint, you may want to think about the LivingDNA test (below) which will provide a more focused point of origin within the UK.
You may also want to consider that none of these tests are useful from a family tree point of view without the recipient having researched some of their family tree first.
Memory Journals and Books
Family tree researchers will always tell you that they had wished they had spoken to their parents or grandparents about their family history when they were younger. Unfortunately people get older and then pass away before most of us get a chance to question them.
This is why we think memory journals are so important – write down memories before it’s too late!
For this section we have also selected some of the best genealogy guides around.
Genealogy Software
Finally we get to family tree software and storage! We professionals use Family Historian 6 to produce our family tree reports and charts. It has the ability to import information from a file produced on Ancestry.co.uk called GEDCOM – this means that we can work on our trees on the Ancestry website, then import the tree without having to enter the information all over again!
From our desktop we can then use Family Historian to print lovely charts and write family histories. It’s our recommendation.