I was asked to forward this to the list in hopes that all will know just what the Morgan Co. Genealogical Society, Inc. and the Morgan Co. Archives has available and what they do for the researchers. I am probably the worst at being guilty and I KNOW what it takes so...THANK YOU! Morgan Co for all your efforts!! I do appreicate all you have donated to make a successful website and your support of it! Kathy ****** Hello All, I would like to try to straighten a few things out. I don't think you are reading the information correctly before you fly off the handle, get mad, then add your two cents to the fire, and many do not even know what you are talking about! First of all, the original postings were concerning the 1850 Census. The person who published the 1850 and 1860 census does have a copyright on the books. And I would stongly suggest that you not COPY her information in any fashion. Kathy has personally copied the 1850 census and has it on her website, you can rent the microfilm or you can buy the CD from the Genealogy Shoppe (Kathy Hudson). Next, as to the Morgan County Heritage book. The Morgan County Genealogical Society has put no copying restrictions on the book as far as I know. However, I think the Morgan County Archives does not allow it to be copied. The society has placed copies of all the stories in the book in the family files at the archives, which as far as I know can be copied. The writers of the articles hold the copyright...not the society. All we did was spend well over a year putting the book together and trying to make it the best book that we could. As with any publication like that, there will always be errors, etc. because we just took the information as it was sent to us and because so many people were involved in publication. There was no way we could RE-DO everyone's research...we had no choice but to hope that you were all "meticulous" researchers and had the information correct. As to the sale of the books...the society is not making ANY money on the Heritage books. After the publisher found out how large our book was he went way up on the original price. We have to purchase the books from him . Someone mentioned thousands of dollars...that is an understatement. The society put out MANY, MANY, MANY thousands of dollars to buy the books which we have sold. And when the few we have are sold, we will NOT be buying any more books. So, if any of you want one, now is the time to get it. In the very near future there will be no more copies available. Next item: I would like to make a distinction between the Morgan County Genealogical Society and the Morgan County Archives. They are TWO SEPARATE things. The society does have an office at the archives and our volunteers work to help add things to the archives which will help you researchers. The archives is a branch of the Morgan County Courthouse and the job of the county archivist (Mrs. Susan Bzdell) is to maintain and protect the county records. She has NOTHING at all to do with genealogy, but has been nice enough to provide a good selection of research materials for you. She does not HAVE to provide genealogical materials. All she is REQUIRED to do is house the county records. The society has tried to help the archives by providing the materials we can for researchers. We maintain the family files, obituary collection, photograph collection and try to add books as we can. We have volunteers who EVERY WEEK cut newspaper clippings for the files. We have someone who EVERY DAY cuts obituaries from the Decatur and Hartselle papers for our very large obituary collection. We have people who are working every week to abstract the records which are published in our books. We have volunteers who work very hard EVERY SINGLE WEEK to provide items they think you researchers need. But rarely do I hear people actually THANK them for their hard work. We have put no restrictions on our books as far as copying. Some of the items at the archives cannot be copied, but they are county records. The newspaper books cannot be copied and many of the large county record books cannot be copied. Those are the property of the county and the county government has put those restrictions on the records for their safe keeping. Some researchers are not very careful when copying, resulting in complete pages being ripped from the books. Some have taken a razor blade and actually REMOVED pages. Some pages have been FOLDED, which results in the page breaking off, some books have been defaced and damaged, and even stolen. In order to have the records for future generations the county government decided that they could no longer be copied. BUT...most everything that cannot be copied on the copier is available on microfilm from which you can make copies. You may not be able to slap that big newspaper book on the copier to copy it, but you can go to the Wheeler Basin Library (Decatur) and copy any of the newspapers from the microfilm. The LDS people will be microfilming our records soon so they will all be available from the Family History Library. Instead of being mad, you should thank the archives for protecting the records so you will be able to see them in the future. And you should be thanking your lucky stars that you can go there and SEE and HOLD the books. In Illinois where my ancestors lived, you are only allowed to see the indexes. If a copy of a record is desired, I think the price was something like $12 apiece. You are not allowed to see or hold any original records. As co-author (with Dene Walls) of the Morgan County Cemetery books I can tell you that we have not told anyone they cannot copy from the books. We do lookups for people many times a week...you can find that on Kathy's page too. We have sent many of the cemeteries to Kathy to put on her webpage, we have published many in our quarterly. We have shared in every way we can and you are more than welcome to make copies from the books. It would be very good if you all would read the posts and take a minute to stop and think about what you are reading before you get all fired up and start adding to the fire. Many of the people who write these letters have NEVER been to the archives or know anything about the society. They do not even know they are two separate things. Nor do they care how hard our people are working to provide you with these research tools. It is unfortunate that we MUST charge for the books. Believe me, it would be wonderful if we could just send you all a copy of each and every book to help with your research. But, we must pay for the books the same as everyone else, and we are on a fairly small budget. We're doing the best we can do! PLEASE do your homework and know what you are talking about before you get everyone upset over nothing. If you do not want to pay the price of the book, that is your choice, but please do not cast stones at others you don't even know. You should be thanking these hard working volunteers who crawled through the cemeteries, spent days reading microfilm, worked for years collecting obituaries and photographs, etc. Also, you should definitely be thanking Kathy for providing you with the wonderful website and mailing list. Why don't each of us start doing something to help the rest of us!! Remember...TOGETHER WE CAN DO MORE!! Thank you. Sue Marine, President Morgan County Genealogical Society suem@hiwaay.net