Genealogy.....has anyone had any success?

Over the past couple years I have started to dig into my family's genealogy and boy has it been fun and interesting.

I have spent time finding what I could all along without paying any fees for the information....exhausting the close family members and thus leading to some extended family I didn't even know I had as well as free services like older obituary services.

Active Rain is such a great resource for so many things that I thought I would ask here if anyone has done anything on their own and had success with any of the services out there, ie....Ancestry.com and the like.

I am at the point of diving into a pay service and find so many with varying feedback. I look forward to any insight anyone feels like sharing and I appreciate your time and input.

BTW, here is where I am on my Father's side.....Brudnok, Brudnock (my grandfather), Brudnak (my great-greandfather).....mostly in the Pittsburgh, PA area so far. On my Mother's side.....Bronowicz again mostly in the Pitsburgh area.....both my parents had large families yet it get very sketchy starting with the family size of my grandparents.

Again thanks for reading.....