Pennsylvania

As far as obituaries, they're available to everyone even if they aren't subscribers to the publication. However there's normally a time limit, as you say, maybe a year, maybe 5 or 10 years, for how long a searcher has free access.

The data available in Ancestry.com goes far beyond that. It includes military service records as far back as the Civil War, birth, marriage and death records, and many other items that are considered "public records."

What if someone among your ancestors was a member of the Communist Party? What if a great-great-grandfather was hung for a capital crime? Would you want that to be traceable? There are all kinds of questions and privacy issues.