Family Search continues to be free to the public. The LDS are gradually converting their microfilm collection to digital images and placing them on their website - witness the Pomeranian church records. There are a few projects where they have teamed up with another organisation, such as Ancestry, where access to the images are not available through your home PC, although you can search the index at home. One example of this is the 1920 and 1930 Census records for America. However if you go to an LDS library, you can view these images on their PCs and save copies for yourself on a thumb drive. I regularly use the LDS libraries as they have microfilms of records which I need which are not available on-line, and which I order into my local LDS library for a small fee. (The fee covers their cost of sending the film from Salt Lake City to Western Australia and back). If, between visits, I find something, such as a 1930 American census record, I make a note, and when I visit the library to read my microfilm, I also then view the image on their PCs and save a copy. On another note, it costs all these organisations money to place these records on-line. They have to get the funds to do this from somewhere as money doesn't grow on trees, and they're not getting it from government. In the 1980s when I first started my research, there was no internet, let alone genealogical websites. Research had to be done using pen and ink writing to libraries and archives, and often having to pay for a record agent to do work that the archive staff didn't have time to do. David Armstrong Maylands, Western Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: Kitty To: prussia-roots@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2012 8:02 AM Subject: Re: [PRUSSIA-ROOTS] Missing something? When did this happen? That's awful! Is this also why Family Search now has limited images unless you pay for them? I'm getting sick of this! On Apr 13, 2012, at 5:50 PM, John wrote: > Probably because ancestry decided to spend all that money to buy them out > and get away with charging more people to access but claiming they are doing > it for our best interest..... ancestry has a BAD habit of buying up > successful competitors......