If you are an Alameda County researcher and would like to *occasionally* help people out with their research but don't want to get bogged down by commiting to do lookups on a regular basis, there is a way you can have your good-deed cake and eat it too! Visit the Alameda County GenWeb site (url listed below), click on the "Queries" and select one to adopt. The next time you're at your favorite research site, do the lookup and send it off to the requester. I've tried to make it easy for good samaritan wannabes by providing a "help for the helpers" section at the bottom of the query page. There you can find an index by "most recent queries" and by city. I also check with query posters every 6 mos or so to assure that the query is relatively current--thereby cutting down on the horrible frustration that comes with doing the work of researching only to find a dead email address or that the person already has the info. (people are *supposed* to inform me to update queries or remove them but that doesn't always happen) --Laurel Alameda County, California GenWeb Page http://www.katpher.com/alamecty/alamecty.htm