I'm finding it extremely helpful! For example:
- It shows birth/baptism and death/burial dates and locations;
- It shows parents and children;
- It has FAR better direct information for the immigrant generation and THEIR parents (and sometimes their grandparents) which neither the PRDH and esp. Tanguay do! Some records even have links to images for 16th/17th French baptismal records!
- Most entries list their sources which makes it easier to confirm conflicting data.
But - as always - there are caveats:
- I've found mistakes - at the very least discrepancies with the PRDH; most of the time it appears to be people mixing up siblings. However in one case it correctly identified a HUGE mistake I had made thinking that a 8th GGF was really two separate people (him and his son). As always, it's best to be careful!
- It's completion is spotty, esp at that awkward era post-1780 when Tanguay's data evaporates, and you're at the edge of what the PRDH has complete.
- It splits up the children for each couple into "married" and "not-married" for some reason. I've found cases where a child was put into the latter category when I know they were actually married (this typically happens when the marriage is post-1800 - again that fringe of where the other archives are also less complete).
- Because this is community-driven - unless the references are on the record, it's not always certain whether the data are correct. One of the areas that I'm mostly concerned about are place names. I regularly find discrepancies - but I don't know if this is a case where a person was born in place X but the baptism record was registered in place Y (this is rather common), or if the person entering the record just has it wrong, or something else.
In any case, it's speeding up the process of checking spouses to see if they're blood relatives, and I'm saving $$$ not having to hit the PRDH quite as often.
(In case there's anyone on the planet keeping track - which I doubt - I'm on family #95 of ~220 on the "get all of the Nth great-uncle/aunt families completely mapped". I should post my workflow.)
