I am writing to address several points made in your article "Outsourcing annoys Quebec genealogists," which appeared in the July edition of Forever Young.

Firstly, I would like to clarify that most of Ancestry's indexing across all its websites and in six languages is done in China, not as a cost-saving measure but because it is the industry leader in palaeography - that is, the interpretation of earlier forms of writing. The cost for this expertise is most definitely not low - expertise rarely is and nor should it be.

Secondly, in the article, Bertrand Desjardins from the University of Montreal makes what Ancestry feels are unfair assertions regarding Chinese expertise in indexing historical records.

As the largest online family-history resource in the world with around six-million site users per month accessing seven-billion records, if our paleographers - regardless of their location - are "people who do not have any idea of what they are keying in" as quoted by Mr. Desjardins, then our subscriber base would most certainly be shrinking and not growing as it did by 13 per cent in 2007.

Following the Drouin Collection launch, member feedback has been very positive. However, as is the case when indexing historical records which are often in a poor original state and created long ago by people with low literacy levels, errors can occur and so we encourage our members to feed back any comments or corrections they may have.

Simon Ziviani

International PR director

The Generations Network, Inc.