In a message dated 08/07/2004 18:26:45 GMT Daylight Time, irene.marlborough@syngenta.com writes: I suspect that FreeCEN will be the gold standard once it has a critical mass of data available and they have servers capable of taking the load. . . Much the same was said of the 1881 census transcript, which was done for the LDS by Family History Society members all over the country, yet errors, some of them blatant, are now known to have crept in. Being a member of a local FHS does not mean that one is oneself a local! Two transcripts were made independently, then compared, and the local supervisor then had to check all areas of disagreement between them. As long as some enumerators had atrocious handwriting, and as long as we have to manage with documents which have been stored badly for a century, which is for evermore, there being only one original, that is as long as there will be difficulties in reading the material. It further reinforces my point about the importance of having local people do the work. The correct spelling - no, there is no such thing as correct spelling: I should say the standard spelling - can sometimes only be guessed at, and if any sense is to be made of an apparently impossible colection of letters to pronounce, then a thorough knowledge of the local accent is essential. With all due respect to those not brought up hereabouts, that is something which simply cannot be acquired! . . In my work as a professional I have lost count of the number of times I have had to inform clients that the pedigree "so far" with which they have presented me as a starting point, is quite inaccurate: in many of those cases the inaccurate information has been "supplied" by the sort of "helpful" people who have given their time freely (it seems they do not need to earn money to live - lucky people!) but whose enthusiasm far exceeds both the thoroughness of their knowledge and of their experience. To be more certain that one's information is reliable, I still say there can be no substitute for an experienced local Professional, who, being full-time (part-timers may call themselves Professional but they cannot be), who is dealing with knotty problems all day every day. There has been much mention made of getting people to "look up" information - OK, but in which records? With the best will in the world someone can only ask for a "look-up" in records they themselves know about and think are likely to prove useful. A local Professional will in most cases know without doing the "look-up" whether or not it is likely to (a) be possible (cf those beginners who ask for pre-1837 birth certificates, for instance, or the parents names from a pre-1837 "marriage certificate") and (b) be helpful. He or she will also probably be able to suggest other sources which the original enquirer might not have known the existence of and therefore could hardly have asked for a "look-up" to be made in them. There is much more waiting to be explored than church registers and census material! . . In case anyone wants to accuse me of advertising, I should say that all this has been very general and indeed I am not the only Professional practising in the region: what I say applies to all. . . Geoff Nicholson . 57 Manor Park, Concord, WASHINGTON, Tyne & Wear NE37 2BU Long-established Professional Genealogist: ask for details of NBL/DUR family history research by THE local expert, working for YOU.