Hello List, Thank you Elizabeth Roberts for your information re the Noel Butlin Archives and the State Record Office concerns. To add to the list of concerns, I wonder how many people are aware that the costs of wills in New South Wales have risen astronomically from $10 to $36. I would like to know how the probate office can justify this huge increase. While we find that the increase came when the gst was introduced so this is one reason for the rise, but the other reason we find is that oh, there hadn't been a rise for sometime. Inspite of these reasons, I still can't see that a rise from $10 to $36 in one step is really justifiable. I would doubt if many family historians will be purchasing wills now at the cost of $36 each. I don't know if letters to the Manager of the Probate Office, of complaint could reduce the costs, but if we don't speak up, then we have no right to winge about things. In closing though, I must say the issue of wills is secondary to the closure of government records at the State Record Office and please everyone write letters, because you not have much of a future left for your hobby if you don't. Please everyone write letters and also we really need to band together, as family history groups and have meetings and speak very loud on the current issues Elizabeth Roberts has raised. At present, these are perhaps more important issues than our own personal family history research. Jan Forbes