Hi Nuala, there is no problem with FMP's reply. The problem lies with my lack of patience. I'm so keen to get a definitive answer to my questions raised several times during the past two years that my memory has distorted the facts. I was blithely thinking that I had written a month ago when it was only 10 days in fact. So, my apologies for moaning when all I should have done was thank Martin for adding his recent experience. Lesley, I too am a mostly satisfied subscriber to FMP and I'm sorry that you see this particular complaint as a 'grumble'. I'm afraid I won't stop complaining about it. I'll simply make two further remarks here. FMP is a commercially run organisation for whose service we pay. When faults arise with every other commercial service, eg when the boiler fails or trains are delayed, we complain. As Adrian carefully outlined in his email of 29 Dec to the Staffordshire List (attached below), FMP is the organisation at fault here. Cheshire RO's catalogue, which largely correlates with Earwaker, has recorded them correctly as has Family Search. How the fault has arisen with FMP appears to lie entirely in their own hands. So we should, and *must*, draw attention to it. There are some 170,000 probate records (121,000 names) in the Cheshire Collection and we are complaining about a considerable number - whole runs of them, not just an odd one or two. Sadly, our complaint is compounded by a lack of transparency in that we don't know how FMP's complaints system works. I say 'must' in the interests of academic rigour (my old beef). Whether family historians regard themselves as academic researchers or not is entirely up to the individual - we have 101 reasons for engaging in researching family connections - but nevertheless we have to be academic about it. We have to use academic methodology and techniques or we will never get at the truth. You just have to ask the question, 'How much have I learned along the way since starting?' and you will be amazed. If you've never done it before you learn new recording skills, your maths and writing skills improve, your knowledge of history and human relationships expands, you begin to understand the 'why' of politics, etc etc ad infinitum. Researching is all about learning and scholarship - well, it has been for me. What I don't want is dodgy evidence because it misleads. It lies. Finally, I want to say something about the things I miss. It is indeed easier to find information from websites such as FMP et al, rather than trek across the country - or indeed the world - to open a register or a document which may or may not contain a piece of gold information needed. But it's not half the fun. I miss the collaborations between Listers - 'I'll search for you here if you could search for me there .' 'I'll meet you at X and we'll do it together.' Now, in the interests of commerce, we are actively discouraged from sharing our findings and I find that really sad. My complaint has nothing to do with gratitude or the lack of it, and I sincerely hope that this will not be read as a 'rant' or a 'grumble' but merely as an explanation of my views and resulting actions. Ruth >From Adrian Bruce: Oh what fun.... 1. "An Index to the Wills and Inventories now preserved in the Court of Probate, at CHESTER, FROM A.D. 1545 TO 1620", compiled by Earwaker in 1879 has "Werden, Richard, of Chester 1618" (but no Elizabeth Watts) 2. I had totally forgotten the Chester RO Index to Wills on their site. But that has this: First Name: RICHARD Surname: WERDEN Place: CHESTER Occupation: Date: 1618 (and it also has the Elizabeth Watts entry) 3. FamilySearch's "England, Cheshire Probate Records, 1492-1940" has both Richard Werden of 1618 and Elizabeth Watts of 1618. 4. FindMyPast only has the Elizabeth Watts entry in the index but the images are a composite of those for both EW and RW. So at some point in the proceedings an error has crept in but while it's tempting to suggest FMP lost the index for Richard Werden, I'd suggest that it's just as likely to have been the preparation of the digitised images by FamilySearch that was in error, leading to the Richard Werden index entry losing its images and therefore being deleted from the index. So - two points, I suggest: - FMP's correction-by-replacement mechanism is inadequate when compared to Ancestry's ability to add additional index entries; - it pays to check other indexes as 3 of the above 4 have Richard W. Finding the image on FMP is another matter, though. As I suggested previously, finding another entry with the same initial letter of surname and same year, then browsing, *may* help. Adrian