A distinctive feature of this site is the ability to network and share information more effectively. This is important when doing family research.
It is completely free – you don’t have to be a subscriber. You only have to register, but if you have a Facebook, Google Gmail, Twitter or Open ID profile, you can access with the click of a button.
What can you look forward to?
- Create or Join a group: Groups are a gathering of members, information, public wall posts and forum topics. Any member can create a group and will be the group administrator. It is a good way to keep track of information relating to a specific topic, such as a surname, history or other branch of genealogy. Use the horisontal bar at the very top of the page, select My Account and drop down to Groups to select Create a Group. Click here to join a group or create one.
- Gallery: This is where you will find thousands of photographs, archival documents, birth, marriage and death certificates as well as photographed headstones from cemeteries and old maps and books. Go to the Gallery.
- Contribute: add your photographs, death notices, wills, estate papers, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates and even photo’s of tombstones to our growing image archive library. This quick and easy tool ensures a way to easily share your documents and photos with friends or relatives or by just making them publicly available. A great way to preserve our heritage on line. Click here to to start adding.
- Blog: Any member can use this to start a mini-website within Ancestry24. This could be centred around a surname, family, your research chronicles or any aspect of South African genealogy. You can invite other members of your family or community to participate, in that way creating a powerful networking and information gathering community. It could even be the start of a book! Go to the “How to Blog” guide”.
- Friends: By connecting to another member, you can build a network that becomes valuable in doing your research. Click on someone’s profile and click the “Add Friend” button. Note, the other member has to accept this request. Each member has a visible list of their friends on the site. Friends lists are browsable and members can click on each friend to see more information – or add them as their own friend. Click here for a list of Genealogists and members.
- Wall (also known as wire): This is where friends and other members can post messages that are publicly visible, similar to the well-known Wall-feature in Facebook. You can for example post on another member’s profile or leave messages for other group members.
- Activity Streams: Activity streams aggregate your activity across the site. All of your friends’ activities are also recorded so you can check what others are doing on the site. This is useful if you want to follow the progress made on a specific family tree, blog etc. Wall (wire) posts, blog posts, new friendships and blog comments are among the most popular activities recorded.
- Forum: Here you can join our forum boards and ask questions which our experts or members of the community can answer.
