In a message dated 7/10/01 5:01:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Tutu14805@prodigy.net writes: << No search feature?? So, for those that have purchased CD's --- who's census's do you recommend as the easiest to use for the $$$?? >> I've purchased census CDs from Heritage Quest and have always been quite satisfied. I think they're having a sale now or they were just a bit ago -- buy 3 get one free. $14.95 for members; $19.95 for nonmembers. URL is heritagequest.com They are actual copies of the microfilmed census, but you can zoom them way up to read images -- and you can also darken them to make reading better -- you can't do that with a microfilm. Like any census, you must use an index (earlier censuses are indexed in books at most genealogy libraries) or a soundex on microfilm (1880-1920) or else go page by page through the census and just hunt and hope your ancestor was in that particular county during that particular census. Of course you can purchase census soundexes on microfilm OR there are some census indexes on CD -- but not all years have been indexed yet. I've purchased several census indexes from Broderbund and also Ancestry.com and am quite pleased with them. Now, as to the 1850 entire state census on CDs put out by Family Tree Maker. I absolutely love them! They do have a search feature, so finding someone is a lot easier. I don't subscribe to any online genealogy services for several reasons. One, I think they're overpriced and you can't always find the state/county resources you might need -- I know WV is pretty slim pickins' and so are the counties I need in TN. Another reason is that usually the sites are so jammed that it's almost impossible to gain access (learned that during a free trial way back). Another reason is one never knows when your ISP is going to be busy or slow or conk out for some unknown reason (like the weather). After 20 or so years of genealogy research I still to this day use census records quite a bit. So I figure if I'm going to spend money it might as well be for something like a book or a CD or a microfilm (have my own reader) which I can pick up a year or so from now and use rather than having to resubscribe to a service. Hope that helps, Neva