I'm not one who usually encourages generic announcements to lists, but in this case I have to make an exception. It could be very useful for people who also want to search by town. Linda List-admin AUS-NSW-CENTRAL ========================================================== (Cross-posted to the major Australian lists - please repost to other lists if you think it is relevant) The Sydney DPS is very pleased to announce that we have at last successfully completed the handover of our entire death index data (now known as the Ryerson Index) to Rootsweb. The data can now be accessed at www.rootsweb.com/~nswsdps or via a link from the Sydney DPS site (at www.ozemail.com.au/~johngrah/dps.html). Although the Ryerson Index is now hosted by Rootsweb, the Sydney DPS is continuing to index both current and backdated death notices, and will continue to donate additional index entries to Rootsweb on a regular basis. We are also happy to include other Australian newspapers, from whatever state, but especially country NSW, in the index. Please contact us if you think you can help - many papers can be indexed from the web, so you don't need to have the actual newspaper available. We are very pleased to have Rootsweb involved with the Ryerson Index, as it makes available to genealogists worldwide an index to over 400,000 (and growing) Australian death notices covering the period from 1985 to the present day. It also ensures that all the indexing efforts of our members are now in the public domain, freely accessable by all. The new site includes additional search facilities. As well as browsing the index in the old manner, it is now possible to directly search by name (full or partial). To aid the local historians out there, the index is also searchable by any place name mentioned in the death notice. In addition, it is possible to add your own comments to a notice - a valuable way of recording your interest in a family for other researchers to find. The DPS encourages any local societies or individuals to add a link to the Ryerson Index from your own web site if desired. No further permission is required - just do it! We would also like to express our appreciation to Southern Cross, for supplying free of charge the disk space to host our site over the past four years. We are all sorry to see you closing down. Happy searching everyone. John Graham, for the Sydney DPS