JPM, I am not asking to violate any copyright, only to have the data on My ancestors in front of me for my personal use! I am going to send this information... it came from a LAWYER who specializes in this area of copyright.... 2.8) Can I ever use a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder, or "What is 'fair use?'" In any analysis of copyright, it's important to remember the law's constitutional purpose: to promote science and the useful arts. "Fair use" is a doctrine that permits courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when to do otherwise would stifle the very creativity that copyright law is designed to foster. The doctrine of fair use recognizes that the exclusive rights inherent in a copyright are not absolute, and that non-holders of the copyright are entitled to make use of a copyrighted work that technically would otherwise infringe upon one or more of the exclusive rights. Although fair use originated "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, ... scholarship, or research," ... 2.9) Fair use - the legal basis of the doctrine. Section 2.8, above, describes fair use in a nutshell. This follow-on entry provides a more detailed description of the doctrine for those interested in the nuts and bolts. There are four factors used to decide whether a particular use of a copyrighted work is a fair use: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll. It may be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is not removed. It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the written permission of the copyright holder. Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. Permission is further granted for this document to be made available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information Services. As you can see, I am fully within the copyright law because I am solely using these scanned images for reseach; I am not selling them or using them for "profit" in any sense which would negate the number of sales to this book ( most of these books are out of print and will not be reprinted). I appreciate your concern. Inga