I find myself struggling to know which thread to use...but hope this is helpful input here. I asked a few professional genealogy pals of mine to tell me what they like/don't like, and what their experiences have been using Ancestry. This following was esp. interesting, I thought:

Lois spent time this week tracing several Lithuanian families in eastern PA in 1910-1930 census, and in WWI and II draft cards. "Surnames were butchered by both enumerators and indexers. New search just would not accept a "name free" search using other personal charteristics. Old search was not precise enough. Finally got the 'last' census entry by the expedient of reading the entries for the two 1920 enumeration districts covered by the 1930 ED WWI draft card for one head of household is still MIA, despite reading the C's and K's for the whole country."

I WISH I knew what might help a researcher with this kind of situation....I have hopes for your new phoenetic search?
Darlene Joyce, MN