Many of us have made progress on our family research due to the kindness of others in sharing information. On several lists recently have been discussions on information submitted to various large databases collected from many individuals whether it be Broderbund/FTM for their pedigree cds, LDS Ancestral File or some of the others. There are in addition other large databases such as those on www.ancestry.com, KindredKonnections, and GenServ. I believe none of these verify any of the material submitted, so it is up to the submitters to verify what they submit BEFORE they contribute it. I personally submit my pedigree information to GenServ at www.genserv.com. I particularly like this database because it is not for profit and does not allow downloading of someone's entire database file. One contributes a database and pays $12 per YEAR to continue use. Submitting is easily done with a gedcom file. The first month or two is free. One accesses the data by sending for an index report of a particular name. Then you can order by email reports, one of which is similar to a family group sheet. The report has on it the submitters name and address, email address and perhaps even a phone number. Usually people one contacts for further information respond. One gets the information by email usually in less than 5 minutes. One nice thing about using GenServ is that you can update your database every 6 months. That means that mistakes are not perpetuated on cdrom for perpetuity. I do believe that corrections can be made to the LDS ancestral file also, but probably not so easily. Although I primarily do my research from books in the library, census documents and vital records, I have found that some of these large databases provide some helpful clues now and then. Just make sure that what you find, you verify and when you submit information, that you send the sources also to help others in verifying your information. Also make sure NOT to include material of a personal nature for living individuals such as social security numbers. Margaret Scheffler