'Those' helpful people

[Jonesy]

To my mind, this single greatest thing about this forum is the attitude so many members have; if they can help, the will, and often with incredible speed.

As well as being amazed by the generosity and willingness to help people they don't really know, on a more practical point, I wonder how they have access to so much info??

Censuses is an example: do some members have an uber-account with A****** that has access to all it's records? Or perhaps people have invested in a CD of an entire year's census (if possible)?

[Procat]

Many members here do have subscriptions to various sites such as Ancestry etc. It is the indexing done by these sites that allow members to find information so quickly in the census etc. Whilst the census is available on CD to varying degrees these are not indexed. It was (and is) a matter of trawling through them to find who you are looking for.

[Waitabit]

Or we Google!

Hang in there Jonesy, & experiment ! or indulge in little before known indulgences.

[Nicolina]

it could be because we are simply fascinated by solving mysteries. It also gives me a break from my own ancestors and it's amazing how often, when I go back to them, I find something I'd previously missed.

[Tolly]

Im a total newbie on here... one day old! I have some ancestry access,am a skilled googler (!!), discovered a few other free sites on the way and just love discovering details of people past, even if they have no relevance to my own family branches! So a combo of everyone's posts previous!! Fascinating, compelling ...

[David Tuson]

I received a letter a few months ago about a family I had been researching - not yet proven if they link to my family. I was able to send her a lot of names of her ancestors plus notes on how they lived, etc.(I made sure it wasn't a message from a 'names collector' first)
It was very satisfying to receive a message the other day saying "now I've really got the bug".
Oh and I got a few twigs to add to that family in return
David