I'm most grateful for the encouragement and all the suggestions about existing websites and ways-to-set-up new ones that I've received on Lists and privately. I will investigate further. However, I need to clarify a couple of things. I realise that because I introduced into the conversation my own dilemma about what to do with personal memorabilia/artefacts I've skewed my original premise in readers' minds. I should have kept that as a separate issue. To recap: I was intrigued by Emma Griffin's book and the methods she used to gain her evidence. I am looking for a way to extend that method. My proposal for a website could only include scanned copies of the written word or drawing/plan which would give us 'the feel' of the person originating the document. What were our ancestors thinking? What were their concerns? What were they feeling? These are the things that names, dates and occupation titles found in official statistics don't tell us. And deep down, when we are researching, this is what we really want to know. The actual document(s) would remain in the hands of the owners. Embarrassingly for me, I have omitted or not emphasised the word 'COPIES' of documents or more importantly 'SCANNED COPIES' in the conversation. Many of us do scan material now quite easily - which is why, in my computer innocence, I thought a website could operate as a wiki - open to all and self-curated. But there are alternatives to consider and at this stage I'm just thinking aloud. If Rootsweb Administrators are happy to host this conversation in its early brainstorming phase it would be helpful if we could continue it on the Lists for a short time. For now, a collective thanks. I hope to get back to you all individually in a short while. Ruth