Hi folks, This note is simply MY thoughts on the ever present subject of Ancestry.com. It does not refer to ANY previous posts, as I have only glanced at one or two, and then deleted them. When I was first seduced into this "hobby" several decades ago, finding basic information was a considerable chore. The internet was just beginning to provide web sites that contained records of interest. The wonderful LDS site was on line, or shortly thereafter came on line, but I still spent the dollars for their CD sets of the 1880 US Census, the 1881 UK Census and the British Vital Records I and II sets. I remember many trips to the San Antonio Public Library to work through the non-indexed films of the Kings County, New York census records. Of course I had to pay for gas, pay for parking at my tax funded library, pay $.10 a copy for inferior copies of faded records, etc. I also frequented the Family History Center in San Antonio, paying $3.25 for every film (over 70 at last count), waiting for film delivery, waiting for a viewer, waiting for the film printer, and again there was the gas and the time spent. Having roots in Brooklyn, NY, I took the opportunity to pay $9.75 per film for the Brooklyn Directory series from 1850 until 1900 in order to have them permanently retained at our FHC. When I finally awoke to the value of Ancestry.com, I became a world wide subscriber, and have been so ever since. When all research costs are considered, there is simply no better value to be had. I chuckle to myself when I see a statement about "free" public records. Everything has some associated cost, be it only payment for a copy of a "free" public record, or the gas necessary to drive to a record keeping facility, if near by. Sent for a Social Security record lately? I consider myself very fortunate in that my immigrant ancestors were Scots, via Quebec, and English, via Worcester, MA to Brooklyn. All of those census records are now available to me with actual images, with the exception of Scotland. Governments have learned the value to their treasuries of indexing and providing genealogical records on line, and they now have pay for view web sites in many cases. I shudder to think of the cost of a lengthy trip to the UK to dig through mountains of paper to find the records that are available to me on Ancestry.com. Is Ancestry.com without faults? Of course not!! Ever stood in line for a state drivers' license? Ever visited the Social Security or IRS offices? Give me a break. We allow our governments to continue on with superfluous people, inefficient procedures, and a "shut up and sit over there" mentality. But we tend to overlook all of the VALUE of a commercial enterprise because there are some areas that definitely need improvement. Of COURSE I am sometimes frustrated by the bureaucracy that exists within the Ancestry structure. I try to provide my feedback at every opportunity. I have no idea if anyone reads most of my inputs, but I do know that corrections that I make to the various census records are posted, and I receive an "automatic" thank you note for each and every one. Every year I am pleasantly surprised by the huge number of new searchable records that magically appear on Ancestry.com. It is difficult to imagine the equipment, time and people necessary to provide that input, so that I can sit here in my shorts at 3 am and search for long missing and obscure ancestors. I can honestly say that without the availability of Ancestry.com and the Family History Center site, I would probably have given up in utter frustration long ago. Those who have been around a lot longer than I deserve a medal for "stick-to-it-ism" !!! Sure, there are many valid horror stories and problems that some folks encounter with Ancestry.com, and this note is in no way meant to excuse them. What I do know is that so long as our current system exists, if Ancestry.com does not grow and improve, there are small sharks waiting in the shallows to become their successor. That has been our history of business. As a final thought, let me say that I am well known for providing look ups, etc., for the folks on the Rootsweb lists that I administer. Sometimes, if I actually have some spare time, I do lookups for folks on the other lists to which I subscribe, so seeing the continuing dissatisfaction by some with Ancestry.com is rather common. What REALLY gets my dander up is when I see an e-mail address of an Ancestry.com basher asking for those of us who pay for that service to do a look up. Chutzpah is not a sufficiently strong term for such nerve!!! By the way, these are my thoughts, worth exactly what you paid to read them. :-) I will not respond to any discussion messages. Regards to all, Joe Bissett Rootsweb Administrator: PIGGOTT, CUMMISKEY, KERSLAKE Surname Mailing Lists