>When I've volunteered on Family History Society stands at fairs such as >WDYTYA Live, I regularly get people coming up to me who are completely >confused by the marketing of Ancestry, FMP and The Genealogist. Each >provider implies that they are the best, and the only one worth >subscribing to. There is a particularly misleading flyer put out by >The Genealogist, which perhaps aligns with the comments below regarding >coverage. > >I always advise folk to start by looking at what BMD / BpMBu data is >available from the provider, relative to their geographical area of >interest (as far as they know it). If the provider doesn't cover >"their" area, they aren't going to find what they are looking for. > >So, I think the proposed tabulation would be brilliant, and a great >addition to our underlying knowledge base. However, it would need a lot >of work to prepare and keep it current (providers seem to update their >coverage almost weekly). It would also be a "valuable" document, so >the Guild might usefully think about how to obtain the best value / >goodwill from the exercise. > >It should cover non-conformist and Catholic records, as well as C of E, >and note whether or not images of the original registers are available. > >It might be preferable, at least initially, to prepare a document that >provides links to the providers' websites where the information is >contained, and to flag up the shortcomings in this information as a way >of prompting the providers to greater transparency. For this reason, >an online document would be preferable to a printed one.