Although I have selected GenConnect as my favorite, I'd just like to say the whole site is a major goldmine of information. Within the past year I have gone from nearly nothing past grandparents and a couple of great-grandparents to several notebooks full of information both from Rootsweb and it's sister sites. However, the grandest find just happened a week ago and came from a combination that I'll try to explain. I had very little on my father's side and was just "fishing" for info and had posted a query on GenForum's message board. In the meantime I had discovered I was on the wrong track so I went back to post a followup "nevermind". When I opened the message board, the very first message contained the recently discovered name of my paternal gggrandfather, offering a fiddle he had made. The strange thing was, my sister and I had discover just the previous week from Ancestry.com's 1900 census that he listed himself as a "violin maker". Previous discoveries listed him as a carpenter! (I suppose he did both, one for a living, the other for fun). Therefore, after contacting the person who posted the message, I am about to acquire my gggrandfather's homemade violin, with his name and the date inside! And it amazes me how all the info came about with a clue here and a clue there until it all came together. I've always liked mysteries and riddles but this form is much more rewarding. As others have already stated, if the going seems to be slow, don't give up, keep looking!