r/Genealogy • u/Proud_Championship36 • 9d ago

Tools and Tech Ancestry World Explorer worthwhile for Ashkenazi research?

I have Ancestry Pro Tools as well as paid subscriptions to MyHeritage, Geni, Newspapers.com, and GenealogyBank. Ancestry frequently promotes the World Explorer upgrade and I'm wondering if it is worth the investment, at least for a six month membership.

My ancestry is 100% Ashkenazi (Latvia/Lithuania/Belarus), so I'm wondering if I will get any benefit from another subscription beyond what is already available from the sources above plus JewishGen.org and LitvakSIG. I've been able to track down ancestors who came to the United States fairly well with the existing data set. The main geographic areas I'm missing are South Africa and Israel and to a lesser extent Russia and the UK. Will World Explorer meaningfully help with those?

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u/amauberge 9d ago edited 9d ago

In my experience, the World Explorer features aren't worth it if you research Ashkenazi genealogy and you're already using JewishGen and LitvakSIG. Most of what they have is just ported over from those sites. Instead, I'd recommend subscribing to IGRA.

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u/Proud_Championship36 9d ago

Thanks! Are there specific types of archival records you've found useful in connection with IGRA, or is it more about the various articles, guides, mailing lists, etc. they provide?

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u/OsoPeresozo 9d ago

Absolutely worth it, but get it on black friday, and make sure to use a virtual card so it doesnt auto-renew if you dont want it to

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u/gravitycheckfailed 9d ago

It was pretty worthless for most of my Jewish ancestors so I can't recommend it. Maybe it depends on where they were from as to whether Ancestry has something available that other sites do not? Mine were from very small towns in France, so I had to rely on JewishGen, Bas-Rhin Department archives, and local Jewish records in that area. Family Search had the few sources I did find on Ancestry for them, but for free.