Sue, if you go to the library and use their microfilm readers to view the census records, this saves that problem. These are the exact same pages you would see on the micro film only better in my opinion. I have only found about 10 or 20 that I had to view the actual census to read what it said. The plus, you do all this in the privacy of you own home, while traveling, just about anywhere you can get a connection...really. The indexes are, as stated earlier, not prefect, but once you learn what to do, like the "wildcard" or I like to call the back door search. When all else fails and I just cant seem to find the person I am looking for, I will type in only his first name, and look at all of them in the county they last resided in, then go out from there. I have found a bunch of my relatives that way and still finding some. The WW I draft card index is great. I do not subscribe to the Europe or over seas databases yet, but get FULL use out of the USA data. I use the trees for my benefit too, just to get leads. Many moons ago I submitted to both ancestry.com and family tree maker, and they use that data for their benefit. I now wish I hadn't submitted it, due to the numerous errors that I have found since uploading. But these errors only caused me to dig deeper and found the truth. I get kind of tired of their BS sometimes, but do keep on using them. The changes they have made to searching is not better, but I can live with them for now, their family tree searches are what I hate since they put to many matches down that aren't even what you are searching for....they have taken work and pooled it together, this too I live with. I think you would like what you get if you do a lot in the census, etc. GO for it and let us know how it goes for you later on. John