Pricing Changes at Footnote

Footnote.com has always been noted as the low-cost leader in online providers of historical data. Now the company is announcing a modest price increase, although I believe the company remains as one of the lowest-priced commercial services available today.

The following announcement was written by Russ Wilding, CEO of Footnote:

Dear Valued Footnote User,

Thanks for making this such an exciting year at Footnote.

When we opened our doors in January of 2007 we had fewer than 5 million images on the site. Since then we've added 2 million images a month and have made improvements to the site. Today you can access more than 42 million images on Footnote. Along the way, we've worked hard to keep our costs down and subscriptions affordable.

With challenging economic conditions, the time has come to make a modest adjustment to our subscription fees.

Starting September 1, 2008, the monthly All-Access Membership price will be $11.95 and the annual All-Access Membership will be $69.95 (an additional 83 cents per month for annual members).

To help with the transition to the new prices, we're inviting users to upgrade to an Annual All-Access Membership at the current price of $59.95.

To purchase an Annual All-Access Membership, go to: http://www.footnote.com/account/. This special upgrade offer expires August 31, 2008.

We believe that at these prices, a Footnote membership continues to be a great value and a low-cost alternative to traveling to an archive to access the same records. We hope you agree.

We appreciate your support and feedback and look forward to continuing to serve you.

Best regards,

Russ Wilding
CEO, Footnote

Comments

[Jason Presley]

They probably needed to do this purely to keep up with the resource load of all that traffic to the Vietnam Memorial section.

[Renee N.]

If the first ancestors of mine came from Europe in the late 1800s and/or early 1900s, is it worth it to join Footnote???

Thanks.

[Dick Eastman]

There is no need to join first just to see if there might be something of interest.

Unlike the other online services, Footnote allows you to search its databases to find all records without joining. You can see if there is a record of interest BEFORE you pay any money. Then, if you want to see the actual image of the original record, you then must either pay for that one image or else join for a month or longer.

Footnote has a LOT of documents about immigrants in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Make sure you look at the Bureau of Investigation case notes, the several million naturalization records that are now on the site, etc.

- Dick Eastman

[Tom Isbell]

I believe that Footnote.com is a breath of fresh air for source documents and at a fair price. My only wish is that all the online site that provide this type of service would find their way into the dark, dusty, and damp basements of county courthouses. The contents such as banker boxes, ledgers, plat books, and such are in danger of being lost forever. We need a national effort to save these documents. I will say that some counties have done a great job preserving and allowing access to these documents but others don't seemed that concerned.

[Cyndi Beane Henry]

I personally got my money's worth the very first day I joined Footnote! If I had only known all of the Civil War data on my ancestors could have been found at that one site for $60 a year, I could have saved a small fortune on the fee's I paid to NARA for individual records! When I found information on my husband's family, the worth more than paid for itself on one single family member!
Now I use it almost daily for my research. It's money WELL SPENT! I gladly pay the small increase!

[leslie]

my local library subscribes to footnote so you may want to check the libraries in your area to see if any of them subscribe.

[patti kirk]

I am so thrilled with footnote... a price increase is in investment
in our family's past and a small investment to our education !
I am thrilled ! Keep up the great work.... Patti Kirk

[James Hannum]

Dear Footnote.com:

Attached is your page for researching Naturalizations, US Dist Court, Mid PA, 1906-30, 21 Nov 1902. Note that there are only 11 dates in 1902, and that each date contains only one record.

There were certainly more than 11 naturalization documents filed in this huge district court in 1902! Over 70,000 immigrants per year entered this district, every year between 1995-1910, and most of them naturalized! Yet you claim your naturalization collection for this district is "99%!" Other years are similar, containing only a few, or a few hundred in some years... Footnote.com has only a small fraction of the nat. papers filed.

The same is true with your Nat Mid PA, and many other of your Nat courts... You have only a few records where there should be thousands. You claim your collections are 95% or 100% complete, when they are actually less than 10%. For example, look at 1913 in:
http://www.footnote.com/browse.php#Naturalizations:%201700%20-%20mid%201900s^Indexes|7552799
Note that there are only a few records in 1913, when there were thousands of naturalizations in that district in 1913, and each naturalization folder contained several documents (declaration of intent, petition, cert. of arrival, etc.)

I am certainly not the only person who has these concerns. Your naturalization collection appears as the most interesting collection for genealogy, but if it has only 5% of the documents, it is of little use. I would love to join your cite for a year, but unless this is resolved, I certainly will not do so.