I try not to use FamilySearch which is the LDS site because of the errors there. I just read a report today or yesterday which was talking about all of the mistakes on that site. I am not back far enough to get to the countries of origin so I think I will have to update my ancestry.com to get the foreign countries. So far, I have ancestors in England, France, Wales, Scotland, Russia, Ireland with a few others tossed in for good measure.
It is a fascinating hobby especially when I get back to the Middle Ages and the plagues, kings, etc. It brings to life what those people went through with all of the deaths and in some cases, whole towns died of the plague. Sometimes there were no one left to bury the dead. I can not imagine living through something like that.
Try it. Don't expect miracles to happen overnight. It may take a while but like I did for my friend, he gave me some names and in about 2 hours, I found data which took the family back to the mid 1500’s. I have tried to find verification info as much as possible. When I first started, I just entered the data and did not add where it came from. Big mistake. His other trees are causing me lots of headaches because I can not find info on the members of the family. It is going to take time for those. But that is ok. I have plenty of time.
One feature of ancestry.com is finding well known people who are related to yours. Of course, I take a lot of that with a grain of salt since some dates are way off base. Children are born after parents and in some cases they are off hundreds of years. But in a lot of cases, I find the right info and if someone else has done that research, use it as a starting point. I then verify what I can from other sources.
Good luck. You just might find it very addictive.
Good info, thanks so much! I’m copying and pasting your reply for reference. I Sent you a private message.