Would you pay for information which is already available, free of charge, on the internet?
Subscription sites are fine - I wouldn't be without my subscriptions - but it's always worth checking out the free sites first. Take, for instance, Find My Past, who now advertise that they have over 20 million baptism, marriage and burial records on their site. Undoubtedly some of these may be exclusive, but I did not find any baptism or marriage records relating to my research that are not already available, free of charge, on the Family Search site, or available on the National Burial Index CDs which I purchased a while ago. The same applies to the Family History Online Site - which also contains the 1851 Manchester unflimed census returns - something else which I had bought in CD format over the years. So I would always support and check the free sites first, then make best use of the subscription sites by knowing exactly what I need to pay for.
This was prompted by the August issue of "Who Do You Think You Are", on tracing Anglican Clergy. The magazine brought to my attention a new website that I had never visited before: Crockford's Clerical Directory. The initial search is free of charge (excellent) but my search for the Rev. Robert Salthouse resulted in absolutely no results at all - I wasn't surprised by that as I had checked a copy of the directory previously and found no result, but I am still surprised that neither he nor his predecessor are mentioned. The magazine article and Crockford's site also referred me to The Clergy Database, my Reverends were not there either. It was not a wasted journey, however, as the sites contain more information and more links that I could find useful another day. If the Rev. R. Salthouse had been listed, and if he had been more central to my research, I might well have subscribed for a year and extracted some very useful information.
The Rev. R. Salthouse has turned up in other parts of the internet, though. His birth is not listed on Family Search, but there are census returns for 1841 and 1851 that look hopeful. In 1861 Robert is a scripture reader, lodging with a family in Preston, in 1871 and 1881 he is the incumbent at St James, West Derby, but he is not in the 1891 and 1901 census. There are quite a few announcements of weddings in the Liverpool Mercury 1866-1867 at which Robert had officiated; Liverpool Record Office has a copy of a sermon he gave at St James on the 14th November 1869 (possibly his first sermon as incumbent after removing from St Peter's and All Saints in Everton), and by smply trawling the internet, I found a reference on an antiques site to a silver goblet, made in 1872 by Wordley & Co., Liverpool, and engraved with "Ethel Eleanor Briggs from her godfather Robert Salthouse, February 1874". The Rev. Robert Salthouse shouldn't be too difficult to follow through one evening.
