This question has come up before and I have to chime in again to agree with
Beverly --- Ancestry.com isn't perfect, but for those of us who live in the
boondocks far from any decent or complete research facilities it is a great
starting point.

I've found the online census images wonderful. Although the current
unindexed state of most of them is a pain --- I've had to search entire
counties page by page --- the info I've found (including totally unknown
Irish connections :-) has been worth the time.  Before I had to go to the
LDS center an hour away (open six hours, one day a week), pay $3.50 to order
the soundex index, wait a couple of weeks for it to come in, drive an hour
back to the LDS, find the person on the index (hoping that they had sent the
right one, not always a given), pay another $3.50 to order the census
microfilm, wait another couple of weeks, drive another hour to the LDS, and
four out of five times, be disappointed when I found that I had the wrong
person (I'm looking for a very elusive great, great grandmother with a very
common name).  Ancestry.com has made it possible for me to find the same
info while sitting at my computer in my pajamas.

Of course, no on-line source will ever replace hands on research with
primary documents, but it is still a great resource.  As with any second
hand info, you have to verify it.  I would recommend the basic sub plus the
census images --- Ancestry.com is currently running a 14 day trial sub to
the English/Irish records and I found them woefully slim, not worth the
money at the moment.  For those who like to slam Ancestry.com and other
online genealogy sites, I suggest that they have forgotten (or have never
known) what it was like in the "old" days before the Web --- for instance,
we didn't have this or other forums to discuss topics like this.  Just think
what our ancestors would think of all this :-)

Kathy Liston

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