The institutional version of Ancestry is what the libraries and historical societies that post records to Ancestry use - I use it at the Library and it is not really any different that the regular version - I have the regular version at home - same records - I can tell you it takes Ancestry 6 months or more to put the records out there for use when an institution uploads a lot of records - Oregon records that we know are uploaded are still not displayed - and by using the main page and searching a person's name - you dont always get every record either - use that search but before you give up - also use the card catalog on ancestry as a lot of databases dont appear on a regular search - the persons name may not appear when you use the card catalog either - but on the card catalog search - you can enter locations = like a county name such as Marion County, Oregon or a type or record such as immigration records in Oregon - etc - and find stuff that does not appear on regular searches - I personally hate the new display that Ancestry now uses as I find I have to scroll through 100 timems more records to find what I want, and am planning on giving up my personal version of it - - Dianne In a message dated 6/7/2011 2:28:12 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Valene, honestly, the very best place to look at records were on the old films. It was time consuming and tedious, but I doubt I would have found the people in my families without it. Our FHL has packed all of them away and relies on Ancestry totally now, and it is annoying, because besides name being spelled various ways, even when I have put in names spelled a different way on the Castle Gardens site, they have not come up. And if you don't know the name of the ship......which most of us don't.......you can't be sure. Ellis Island on the other hand has excellent records, but they are later. Not sure what you mean by institutional Ancestry? Do you mean that FHL and other genealogy sites might have more records? I doubt that, but I gave up my personal subscription on Ancestry after 3-4 years, and of course they add things almost daily. I will have to ask the people at FHL about that. A friend of mine had a very nice experience yesterday and reminds one about paying it forward in genealogy. She has been searching for the first wife of a relative for a long time, her aunt was the second. She found an obit on Ancestry and called the funeral home to see what info she could get. The guy she spoke to was MORE than helpful. He found all kinds of info for her and solved the mystery of the first wife more than she ever imagined. I had the same experience once on an obit from a small town in Nevada. The gal sent me info on everyone in the family I was researching.......and a living relative. Had the opposite happen one time where they didn't want to let any info out, but once in awhile you get very lucky. Good luck as you continue your search. The more you get the more you want, right? KathyB ____________________________________________________________ Groupon&#8482 Official Site 1 ridiculously huge coupon a day. Get 50-90% off your city's best! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4dee96214d2d7304aa1st05duc ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message