Those prices for ancestry.com seem a bit high there in the UK. I joined last January when they had a special of $90 for a year's subscription. I haven't found it very useful, except for the US census records, but then my family has been doing genealogical research for many years and already has most of the info available through ancestry.com. It does save making the 30 minute drive across our traffic congested city during business hours to the federal archives whenever I want to do a census search. I can get an idea in the middle of the night, get online and track it down while it is fresh in my mind.

Scotlandspeople.gov.uk seems horribly expensive, GBP 5 to view a will, GBP 6 just to search through 30 pages--and that must be done within 90 days, viewing those images at 5 credits each. It would seem to be cheaper to do it the old fashioned way and save up one's money until one was at dead ends in the US, then go to Scotland and search the records in person.