[or-roots] Heritage Quest, Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, LDS site

[CKlooster at aol.com]

While I'm a subscriber to Ancestry.com, I have several frustrations with the 
service.  The first is how slow and "clunky" the site is.  Often the census 
images are of very poor quality, and the need to continually download the 
advanced viewer is annoying.  The second is that their "generosity" in hosting free 
access sites comes with thinly disguised search boxes that lead the unwary (of 
which I occasionally am) into the $ area of Ancestry.com.  My third 
frustration is purely philosophical...like FamilyTreeMaker that initially offered free 
individual webpages and sent us all disks urging us to send in our research to 
share with others, these sites basically built businesses on the research of 
others.  My last frustration is that the subscription prices for access to 
census and other data bases is, in my opinion, much too expensive.

I agree with the others on this list; each site has strengths and weaknesses 
and while they often access the same or similar data bases, there are enough 
differences to make each site worth using.

With specific reference to deBeers, I would suggest going to Cyndi's list 
(www.cyndislist.com) and doing a search for the country (Netherlands?) of origin 
of the family.  You'll find on that website a list of archives in foreign 
countries, and various genealogy sites in those countries.  I know from experience 
that if your family did originate in the Netherlands, there are great 
searchable archives online in that country and there are also data bases of people 
who were emigrating.  The resources of course vary from country to country, but 
I've found huge amounts of information through this method.

Carla

Carla Klooster Bonney
Tanana, Alaska
STEPHENS, HAWLEY, WHEALDON, SHIELDS in Oregon and Washington.
KLOOSTER in Michigan and Oostellingwerf, The Netherlands.
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