Ancestory has a lot of other information apart from family trees that can flesh out family history. I had a look on it a while ago when they had a free access weekend and found documentation about my grandad and his brother getting their skippers tickets. I have a subscription to Find My Past which I mainly use to look at old newspapers. They have digitised copies of the Shetland Times up to 1911. You can enter an individual's name or a place name and it will come up with any relevant articles.