Lookup Sites

[Ronin56]

What does everybody use to look up info for the US? I have a short term subscription with Archives and also Footnote but to be honest I'm not getting much out of them and I find coverage is very patchy. Maybe it's my technique! Any better ones out there?

[merjones]

I have found this to be a useful site:

http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start

[Ronin56]

Thanks merjones, I'm using that as well and the combination of all three sometimes does the job but I'm often finding that they give me loads of States I'm not interested in, even if I have specified otherwise or else it seems the info is not available in the areas I am focussed on. Perhaps I'm expecting too much. I guess it's to do with the Federal system that it varies so much. I don't mind taking out a subscription but don't know if other sites would offer more, hence the question. Even the info on an SSDI is very sparse. Anybody know what info you get if you order a hard copy?

[jorose]

For the US you should focus locally.  Look at state archives/state historical societies/local historical societies/local genealogy groups.
Whether or not a subscription to any site will help you depends on exactly when/where your family were and what they were doing.

Depending on where you're searching you might find http://usgenweb.org/ helpful (best to go down to the county level here).

The I in SSDI stands for index, so the information is understandably sparse. The things you can order are the applications, here's an example:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mtroy/support/SS_App_Robert_Troy.jpg
Note that in cases of applications for people who lived more recently (e.g. someone who died relatively young, perhaps) where the parents may still be living they've been known to block out the information about parents.  But because the information is given by the person themselves it's often more accurate than information on something like a death certificate.

[shellyesq]

I don't know what Archives is, but I find Ancestry to be the most thorough of the subscription sites.  Not sure where you live, but Ancestry and/or Heritage Quest are sometimes available free through public libraries in the US. 

Some free sites with helpful information or links:
www.rootsweb.com
http://www.deathindexes.com/sites.html
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/