Well said, Mark. An easily overlooked aspect of ScotlandsPeople is the quality of the indexing, which ensures that search results are closely matched to the search criteria. So if we're looking for a Sandy Thomson in Lumphanan, you won't end up with a list of hundreds of variants on Samuel Thorn in Lonmay or London. The search facility does what you ask of it. It's also important to bear in mind that as genealogical researchers, our first recourse is to primary sources, which means looking at original records or their digitised versions. For Scotland we have the full range of civil registration records, wills, parochial & Catholic records, as well as census records and valuation rolls, all accessible in original format - and all in one place! It's all very well finding someone who looks like your ancestor in an Ancestry tree, but can you rely on its accuracy when you don't have sight of the records on which it's based? The person who once referred to "Ancestory" spoke volumes... Let's compare like with like. Alison On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 8:21 AM, Mark Sutherland-Fisher (HFH) < info@highland-family-heritage.co.uk> wrote: > Good morning all, > As Andy said, Scotland's People is a government website. Scotland is one of > the few countries in the world who have put almost all their public records > on a digital platform so that they can be accessed from anywhere in the > world. You can't do it in England or the USA. If one knows what one is > searching for, it is incredibly cheap. The search is free. Checking the > records costs 1 unit and downloading an image of the actual entry in the > records costs 5 units and then one can store the downloaded record for use > as often as needed, printing out etc. No having to order it. No having to > wait for it to arrive in the post. It happens instantly. As 30 units cost > £7, careful searching will generate up to 5 images. That is a cost of £7 > instead of around £50-75 if having to order them. > > I have personally downloaded over 100 family certificates. I have also > downloaded wills written as early as 1610 and much more. > > I use Ancestry which happens to be utterly hopeless when it comes to > Scottish records. Those who transcribed original records often get the > names > and place names hopelessly wrong. Family Search is full of entries which > are > no more than wishful thinking on the part of members of the Latter Day > Saints church who have submitted them. Find My Past is just like Ancestry. > Other than for the very exceptional entry which Scotland's People has > overlooked or failed to index, there should not be records for Scotland > which appear on the member websites if they relate to items covered by the > Scotland's People site. > Regards, > Mark > > -----Original Message----- > From: aberdeen-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:aberdeen-bounces@rootsweb.com] > On Behalf Of Andy > Sent: 31 March 2014 22:44 > To: aberdeen@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [ABERDEEN] ScotlandsPeople > > Hi > > ScotlandsPeople is not a commercial website, it is a Scottish Government > website (note the url .gov.uk) operated by BrightSolid on behalf of > various > Scottish Government Departments. > > BrightSolid, as well as running its own commercial sites such as Findmypast > and GenesReunited also manages IT services for a number of businesses and > organisations including ScotlandsPeople on behalf of the Scottish > Government. > > Andy > > -----Original Message----- > From: Venita > Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 5:25 AM > To: aberdeen@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [ABERDEEN] ScotlandsPeople > > Well said, Goldie and Sharon! At the current price for credits, and > number > > of credits paid per image, it would cost me about $15 US to look at one > record. That's fine, if I know for sure that is the record I want, and I'm > not looking for parents or siblings of the individual in question, or for > additional life events. For about $150 US per year, I can look at as many > digital images as I choose on FindMyPast. I can do real research on > FindMyPast, but not on ScotlandsPeople. It think it's time for them to > stop > shooting themselves in the foot! I'm for spending my money wisely - must > be > the Scottish in me . ;-) > > Venita > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >