Definitely not useless. I've been able to add a couple more generations to my ancestors still in Europe. And yes I could've just ordered the film at my local FHC but the last time I did that it was seven weeks before the film got there. Accessing the information from home plus it already being in digital form is a great benefit for me. And you can't beat free. One thing I have learned in the past couple of days is that their images are in grayscale, unlike HeritageQuest which has B&W images. This means that you can use software to manipulate things like contrast and threshold which can make an otherwise unreadable document useful. I do have a few criticisms though: The search forms seem to be unnecessarily limited and the search engines are attrocious. Please let me look for people in a particular Oklahoma county who were born in Alabama during a certain time frame. Also, if I'm looking for JONESes in Oklahoma, why are you showing me SMITHs in Maine? Just as a general principle, one should be able to search on any field or combination of fields. But my real complaint is with the sources and citations. They just don't seem to give them. I don't think it's adequate to simply say a marriage record is from film #1234567. I would like to say film #1234567 of Jones County GA Marriage Book AA page 321. I would like to say where the original record can be found, even if that's not where I got the information. On some of their census records they do not have the image available. But again they don't give enough information to find the census record elsewhere. At least they should give the county! All just my humble opinion. Steve -- > From: "Nivard Ovington" <ovington1@sky.com> > I have given up with it as its all but useless

----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve" <shmartonak@ticnet.com> To: <paf-5-users@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 2:01 PM Subject: Re: [PAF-5] Family Search <snip> > I do have a few criticisms though: > > The search forms seem to be unnecessarily limited and the search engines > are attrocious. Please let me look for people in a particular Oklahoma > county who were born in Alabama during a certain time frame. Also, if I'm > looking for JONESes in Oklahoma, why are you showing me SMITHs in Maine? > Just as a general principle, one should be able to search on any field or > combination of fields. > > But my real complaint is with the sources and citations. They just don't > seem to give them. I don't think it's adequate to simply say a marriage > record is from film #1234567. I would like to say film #1234567 of Jones > County GA Marriage Book AA page 321. I would like to say where the > original record can be found, even if that's not where I got the > information. > > On some of their census records they do not have the image available. > But again they don't give enough information to find the census record > elsewhere. At least they should give the county! > > All just my humble opinion. > > Steve What do you want for nothing Steve? Still, you are humble in your opinion.