Claudia Schuman wrote: > Just an FYI > > If your local library subscribes to the Heritage Quest Databases, and most > larger libraries do now, you can access the HQ databases at home through > your local library using your library card no matter where you live. Heritage Quest has advantages and disadvantages over census databases at Ancestry.com. Heritage Quest is not an every name index; it is a head of household index. Single individuals living as boarders or roomers are indexed as heads of households. So the disadvantage is the need to know head of household. I think an advantage is that a Heritage Quest search produces fewer and more specific results. I also like the Advanced Search format at Heritage Quest. Many of us have problems with names being spelled in a variety of ways. When I was looking for Fitzgeralds in a couple of Ohio counties, I just entered only the census year - say 1860 - the county, and born in Ireland. The results list of all heads of households born in Ireland was in alphabetical order so Fitzgerald, Fittsgerald, Fitzchild were all grouped near each other. This really saved a lot of time (not to mention I hadn't even imagined Fitzgerald misspelled as Fitzchild.). The Heritage Quest book search includes some city directories for Minneapolis and St. Paul. I am a fan of these Heritage Quest databases - its great that the libraries have added them. Shawne FitzGerald Minneapolis