One thing I've learned Peter is that other people's family trees are occasionally useful as a hint, but can't be trusted. As an example, my father-in-law, who'd never been further from Wales than Gloucestershire, appears in several online trees as having died in Newfoundland. He lived for some years in a village called Fleur-de-Lys in South Wales, and there's a registration district of that name in Newfoundland... What's really disappointing is that many of the tree owners are family members, who would have known him, but clearly haven't bothered to check what they've put online. I made a few mistakes when I started, which were copied into several other trees!
I too started with a free offer on Ancestry - it was more than two weeks then though. I've subscribed ever since. I've dabbled with some other genealogy websites such as The Genealogist and Find My Past, but haven't found them as good as Ancestry.
I'm back to around 1760 on some branches of the tree, but a bit stuck now with the county record offices being inaccessible.
Pete