Ken, You and I both try to provide a "niche service". Neither of us are researching other people's families, but we provide them a place to display their data .... and not all of them do it in the same way, some more careful than others. I am careful what I accept and from whom, but I can only vouch for my own line. But being able to see it all in one place, even with the warts it may have is, in my humble estimation, of great value (at least to myself and to many others I know of). I have thought that "someday" I would actually write a genealogy of my line and put it on the net. That way I could say that somewhere there actually _IS_ a genealogy online. But until that day, people need to know -- the data on the web, almost all of it, is not a "genealogy" but rather just a compilation of data -- just a big stack of electronic papers. Surely no one is going to do a genealogy with data taken from a web site! For those of us with brick walls -- we need to see all the data, because we don't know where we fit in. It helps us get ideas for where to start the real research. thanks, Tom Cloud At 08:19 PM 12/17/2005, you wrote: >Tom > > Interestingly enough, I read your words here and find that you sound a bit like I do, trying to find a place for everything and in many cases not having a clue other than what someone has provide. It appears that we are both working towards and uncommon end, and that is a shame. I dont really suppose that the CFA will ever make public the database they work from and because of that I have gone out on my own and kept the Cloudweb site going. Again I started looking for my own line, but ran into and was provided so much colateral info that I didn't want to just throw away, so as it became available, I examined it and if it seemed plausible added it to my data. I am sure there are many errors in my data, but if the error is there and someone can correct it, I feel the effort has been worth while. I really doubt that I will continue this for much longer, age and all that; so my real wonder is what will happen to it after I am gone. There so much valuable info there and ! I would hate for it just to go dormant and be lost and not available for researchers that follow. I guess time will tell what will become of it. My kids are not really interested, so I guess will give it all the CFA and let it just lay there. Enough of this. Just venting a little I guess.