Genea-Musings

I'd love to hear what you think of free sites such as RootsWeb, FamilySearch and the GenWebs. There are others as well.
I'd also love to see suggestions on how to improve a county site. I have one and I'm always looking for comments on what people really want to see on the sites. What's good, what's bad, a wish list or a general gripe about what is simply missing.
I read all your reviews faithfully.
 

I would like to see more databases for Marriage Records. It seems that that is the area that has the least online records. You need marriage to find what happens to the women as they get married and change their surnames.
 

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Ancestry.com. The bottom line is, I would be so behind, frustrated, and plain unable to get the records that I get about my ancestors without Ancestry's help. But - the cost kills me.
Mind you, the cost is still cheaper than ordering every individual record, you don't have to wait weeks for the record to be delivered, and you don't have to travel to the particular place to get the record.
Maybe it is because I am a cheap college student - but I find it mind-boggling how much they charge.

My only real issue with Ancestry.com is that once you post a tree on there - it stays on there. When I first started doing genealogy, I had acquired a lot of mistakes in information (unknowingly) and I was posting a new tree at least every month. Well now - even though I've deleted the trees, I can still see the trees when I do a search. I feel bad because I am trying desperately to fix my mistakes and I don't want other innocent genealogists to write down the wrong thing. Plus, they compile all this information into their OneWorldTree database, which is so full of mistakes that I wonder if there is ever any truth at all.

All in all - I have to say that I am pretty happy with Ancestry.com. They really are trying their best and they do have some awesome records available.
 

Once upon a time, Ancestry.com had the entire 1920/1921 R.L. Polk City Directory for the city of Detroit in it's collection. This is probably the most significant directory ever published for the city of Detroit because it was the year when the city addresses were renumbered and some streets were renamed. It had both the "old" addresses and the "new" addresses for every household and business in the city. As far as I know there has never been a reason given for taking the directory out of it's collection or any mention of adding it again in the future. I'd really like know if there are plans to add it back into their collection and if so when. If not, why not?