1837online - does exactly what it says it will do, there is no 'con' and it is a very good site. It allows you to search the whole of the GRO INDEXES from 1837 to 2003 - just as if you were at a record office looking at them on film, or at the Family Record Centre, in London looking at the books. YES it does cost money, bought in Units, not subscriptions, the company invested a considerable sum of money in scanning all the Index pages and putting them on line to make them available for everyone with access to a computer to search. For me, it is much cheaper to search 1837online than it is to drive to the nearest record office, and pay to park the car. It also allows me to do at whatever time of the day or night I choose and not just when the record office is open. FreeBMD is also a good site, but it only contains those records that volunteers have taken the time to transcribe and that is by no means ALL the indexes. NATIONAL ARCHIVIST is a company set up and licensed by the NATIONAL ARCHIVES to provide and put online, INDEXES to some of the records in the National Archives. There is no 'con' and although it is a little confusing with the two names being very similar, it does say exactly what will be found on the site, Indexes from the National Archives. The merger of 1837 and National Archivist, is a consolidation exercise by the 2 companies and will provide better value for family historians everywhere. One lot of units will purchase a greater range of goods. I wish everyone good searching - Sue Page

Thanks to all those who replied. Fascinating! Cheers Graham