Wilhelm, You asked: The box labelled "Place" seems to have certain preferences that are in the dark to me. I have been trying to "refine" some searches by parishes where I know that records are online (IGI). Most the time some text pops up whichen I start typing my own. Then I get the answer that there are no records from that area - but without typing anything into that field, I get resaults. ????????? Me: The field will only be populated from a standarized list. You must type in something and hope it is completed by the list's wizard. You may have to experiment. Excuse the U.S. examples, but this is what I was working on over the weekend. If I know the town, I can try it: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, United States If I know the county: Multnomah, Oregon, United States If I know the state: Oregon, United States If I know the country, United States All of the above would have completed automatically after I started typing in what I knew. Start from the smallest entity and see if the rest of the field populates. You might have to pause to let the wizard catch up with you. Also, remember that the data for Germany is not complete so you might not have data for every place. Does that help? Paul