I just thought I'd put my two cents in - I'm living in Germany and I have a full subscription to Ancestry.com. I think it's one of the best buys I could make for my ongoing family searches. How else could I sit on a different continent and look at original census images from the early 1800's? Ancestry offers what it calls a U.S. subscription that includes all the family entries and the census records at $99.90 per year. That's less than $10 per month and much, much less than many of us would pay on a weekend trip to check out records in a small town or at one of the major libraries. Much data has been made available free through the work of many wonderful volunteers, but even RootsWeb wouldn't have been able to stay alive on a free basis if it hadn't merged with Ancestry.com. Yes, they charge us, but I think the price seems pretty reasonable and if they don't make money why should they continue to provide the service? No one needs to use the online services; we can all go back to writing and waiting or traveling to get our information. We don't expect to get free copies when we write for records, why should we expect free online data. There are sites that are rip-offs, but Ancestry.com isn't one of them. These people certainly seem to try to provide service and value for the price. At least, that's been my experience. Patty Huggins