Contained in an article on the possibility of Google bringing public records on line, I found the snippet below. complete article: http://tinyurl.com/3edr7p So how did The Generations Network import the data from millions of old census forms into its online database? Sullivan (CEO of GN) says the company spent about $75 million over 10 years to build its "content assets" including the census data, and much of that cost went into partnering with Chinese firms whose employees read the data and entered it into Ancestry.com's database. The Chinese staff are specially trained to read the cursive and other handwriting styles from digitized paper records and microfilm. The task is ongoing with other handwritten records, at a cost of approximately $10 million per year, he adds. ======================================================= Carolyn Feroben California Gen/Historical Societies(county by county) http://mariposaresearch.net/CALIFORNIA_GENEALOGY_SOCIETIES.html