I have used them several times with success. My requests have always been for the 1857 and 1869 census and have been very helpful in locating the names of sibling of ancestors and parents names that were living in the households at that time, especially helpful with the names of a few that had died in Europe before the rest of the family came to America. I too had a couple of ancestors that the census was previously destroyed as others have mentioned, but there was no charge for those requests since they did not perform a search of those records. I am very satisfied with the information they provided.