@Rich,

Yes the answer is clear!!! Also if you listen to the advertisements for Ancestry and such, they say: "Become your family historian, ..." I laugh every time I hear this, you can't become the family historian when you copy the work of others without doing your own research.

In my PhD program I am required to do my own primary research, not use other's work. This requires me to learn Latin, Old Norse and Old English so I can read the original text from the middle ages and before.

FTM and Ancestry are geared toward the beginner who wants to find their great grand parents or living 3rd cousins. Their is nothing wrong with this I think people need to do this and it is important for them and society as a whole because the more we learn about our past the better we can live today. But it is not enough to be a "historian".

That's just my opinion.