Pamela D.

I gave up on Mapquest a long time ago. The initial portion of the written directions were fine, but it seemed every time I used it, the last or next to last directions were exactly the opposite of what should be done.

Whenever I want quick reference on something, for instance, when I'm watching television, Wikipedia is great. It covers so many unexpected subjects. In actual fact, it is somewhat moderated, and not just anybody can edit some subjects. That aside, as a retired librarian, what I really like about the Wikipedia articles are the references to other resources given at the end of the articles. These are the most important for verifying the information in the Wikipedia article. The references may make Wikipedia more valuable for a research project than the actual Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia may be best used as a spring board to finding good resources. The internal links in the articles are useful, but you must remember, they are internal and can be just as erroneous.

I initially thought this would be a very good site to begin investigating my family tree when I used the free access, but decided I wouldn't really pay to join until I retired and could spend more time. It still may be very good. I have second thoughts, though, after reading in a review for Archives.com that Ancestry.com is related to it. Archives.com sent me a message that I was subscribed to it and that $39.95 would be automatically be deducted from my credit card account unless I cancelled. I have never used Archives.com, which has a bad ethical and service reputation. I suspect Ancestry.com may have enabled Archives.com to go on a phishing expedition to me. I'll be checking my account.