Here is a resource that will not be a rip off tha we all will be wanting to use. According to COMPUTER SHOPPER magazine dated Nov, 2000, effective in December, 2000 Genealogydatabase.com will have a 3.5 tetrabyte digital database of the imiages of all existing US censuses from 1790 through 1920, the last one released. According to the article the company is digitizing and restoring the actual pages from the census, making them clearer to read and quicker to research. costs will be $29.95 per quarter or $99.95 per year. I have gone to their website and read everything available. Needless to say I made the site one of my Favorites in IE%> They expect the database to eventually grow to 10 tetrabytes. Earnie BKAYMEL@aol.com wrote: ----- Original Message ----- From: Patsy H Weikart To: Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2000 8:32 PM Subject: [WVPioneers] Interesting article on researching on-line. > > > Genealogy in Time > > The November 2000 issue of TIME DIGITAL has a great cover story about > doing > on-line genealogy research. Author Curtis Rist describes his somewhat > naive > introduction to on-line genealogy. He groped around a bit, probably like > millions of > others. However, as a staff writer for Time, he had an option that many > beginners do not have: he could ask for assistance from experts. He did > so. > In the article he frequently quotes Elizabeth Shown Mills, editor of the > National Genealogical Society Quarterly and president of the American > Society > of Genealogists, and David > Lambert, a reference librarian with the New England Historic Genealogical > > Society in Boston. He also mentions a number of other people who helped > his > efforts. > > At the beginning of the article, Mr. Rist describes his first on-line > search, > where he uncovered all sorts of potential relatives living in upper-class > > communities. Rist writes, "The only problem is, of course, that all of > this > is a fiction. Without regard to > nettlesome documents such as birth certificates and marriage records, I > simply typed the family name into a few Internet search engines, did a > search > of records on some paid genealogy web sites .... - and voil�, an instant > heritage. I don't have any proof of my connection to these far-flung > Rists, > but neither do most people who trace their roots on-line." > > He also quotes David Lambert: "There used to be companies that would send > you > postcards in the mail saying, 'We have the family tree for all your > relatives > in the county; just send $29.95.' And what you would end up with was > essentially a glorified telephone directory," he says. "Well, essentially > > these glorified phone books have now migrated to the World Wide Web." > > Rist describes some of the Web sites and the sellers of CD-ROM disks > containing millions of names that seem to promise instant genealogy by > saying, "...they're giving people exactly what they want: easy-to-access > information, such as marriage listings and ship-passenger registries, > without > worrying much about details like verification." > > Rist goes on to describe how to do genealogy properly. He encourages > people > to use these same on-line resources, but to use them as clues, not as > facts. > He tells why these mass sources are not useable in their present form and > > then encourages the reader to find the truth. He does advise people to > use > on-line resources, but also cautions them to always double-check > everything. > > You have to read this article. If you have a friend or neighbor or > relative > who is just starting to research a family tree, make sure you also tell > him > or her to read it. Go to: > > http://www.time.com/time/digital/feature/0,2955,56764,00.html ==== BLANKENSHIP Mailing List ==== Check out Jack Woodward's wesite: http://members.tripod.com/jdwoodward