Hello Everyone I find this conversation very interesting, but want to point out that for many of the seemingly undocumented, unsourced online genealogies and gedcoms, including the Hadley Society's database, there are people behind the scenes responsible for that information who do have the documentation and sources, and upon query to the individual responsible for the database, you can be put in touch with those who can provide you that documentation and source infomation. I take myself as an example. I do not have a World Connect website myself, but the information at the Hadley Society Database on the descendants of Thomas Marshall and Elizabeth Fortner of Greene Co TN is largely the result of research I did with three cousins. We have extensive documentation. For only one part of it from a person now deceased on one of their daughters (Martha md. Harrison DeFord), do I not have a substantial amount of documentation (census records, cemetery records, etc.). In sum, I strongly urge you when finding an online gedcom or any similar report of personal interest to contact the persons who posted it. You may be exceedingly pleasantly surprised that for alot of that type of information there is alot of documentation. In my case, I have HARD copies of the great majority of the census records through 1920, cemetery listings, many probate records, for the siblings of many branches of that family, and many of the allied lines beginning in 1850, except some who took off for Colorado, Utah, Oregon, etc. I have not, however, typed them all up.. I can however provide support when asked. I would imagine that is the situation with alot of folks who have info online. So if you see something that looks like it's yours, go ahead and contact the person at the website...regardless of whether it is a gedcom with 30,000 people or 300 people. The smaller ones are sure to want to "talk". The larger databases if focussing on surnames also can almost always provide contacts. Some of the large databases at places like world connect, however, have been cobbled together by other people's gedcoms there...and you may not have much luck. I also point out that you can do searches at World Connect with the restriction that you only want those gedcoms wtih notes and/or sources. You also can search without a name...For example, all marriages in Chatham Co NC between 1760 and 1800. All gedcoms with persons who migrated from Rowan Co NC to Greene Co TN. Here you are at the mercy of folks who enter such information, but it is a great tool! http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi World Connect gedcoms and Ancestry.com gedcoms are IDENTICAL, a combined database. For what it is worth, those are my thoughts. Janet Hunter (Simon Hadley & Ruth >Joshua Hadley & Mary Rowland > Ruth Hadley and John Marshall > Abram Marshall & Martha Doane > Thomas Marshall & Elizabeth Fortner, my 2 g grandparents. So before you