Hello Listers, There has been a lot of chat about FTM CD for 1851 census. I must have been lucky because I realised from the ad that I saw that it would not be much use, having only about a million or so entries on it. The Vitals Record Index and the IGI suffer from the same problem i.e. they do not have 90% of the available data. It seems to me that if you get some information, as I did from the VRIB for the sum of about £12.00 that's not a bad exchange, bearing in mind how much time and effort and money, I would have spent going to ROs to find the same information. The 1881 census has been the best £30 I've ever spent. I decided not to buy the FTM CD because I had access to Gordon Beavington's CDs for my area. If I lived outside of Wessex however I might think that the FTM CD gave me something, even if it wasn't a lot. So for those people who live outside Gloucs/Somerset and Bristol the FTM CD might be better than nothing at all. It just depends how far away you are from the nearest RO and how prepared you are to sort through it. FTM is an excellent, easy to use piece of software. Where I take issue with the makers and back off totally is they invite us to submit our trees, the product of months and years of work, time & money, which seems fine. Then they say that to access that data and the work of others they will charge everyone, even contributors $200 per year to read the entries. That is bare-faced cheek especially when experience tells us that most of the data would be about Americans post 1800. It would be have either very dubious validity (falling a long way short of LDS standards) even if it happened to be of your own family, or would have large areas locked out with privacy labels. For the life on me I can't understand why people offer their data to a common data base then use the privacy lock! Having said all that, half a loaf may be better than no bread at all for people a long way from source materials and for whom $200 is a lot cheaper than travelling to the UK or Europe. We must all make our own minds up according to our needs. And just hope we something worthwhile out of it. Don't you think so? Brian, of Bath PS What annoys me more than the shortcomings of these commercial products, is those Listers who can't even be bothered to say thanks, when you've done some research for them. It happens in family history societies too, but at least they've got the excuse they're too mean to buy a stamp.