Gwen;

Their suggestions are excellent. However, I recommend you use BOTH the Ancestry.com AND Heritage Quest (via Godfrey.ord) subscriptions. In this way, you'll have ALL the census years covered:

* Heritage Quest covers: Complete indexes of 1860, 1870, 1900, 1910
In addition, HQ allows you to search by RACE, something Ancestry doesn't do. But the best thing about HQ is that with the new 1900 index, we no longer have to use that GOD-AWFUL Genealogy.com (yea!!). FYI, Stay as far away from Genealogy.com as you can. It's search engine is flawed, the site is incredibly slow, and the value for the money is poor.

* Ancestry.com covers: Complete indexes of 1850, 1880, 1920, 1930
In addition, Ancestry allows you to do a SOUNDEX search, a WILD-CARD search, or a KEYWORD search, something you won't find elsewhere. In my opinion, however, the images on Ancestry.com are better than those on HQ. I usually do my searches of the 1900 and 1910 on HQ, then print them out from Ancestry.com.

In addition, if you're a PC user and you use Internet Exploder as your browser, you can use the MrSid plug-in on Ancestry.com and get even more viewing options that you don't get on HQ. The MrSid plug-in is free and will NOT harm your computer in any way, so when it asks you to download it, please do. Trust me on this ... I've been a systems administrator for many years and I would never suggest you do anything to cause harm/damage to your computer.

BOTH sites allow you to search by FIRST NAME (can be VERY helpful), search multiple states at once, search by birthplace, and by specific county.

Oh, you can call the librarian at Godfrey Library and with a credit card, she'll give you your library card number over the phone so you'll have immediate access.

Good luck in your search, my dear.

- Lisa B. Lee
Oakland, CA