At 09:58 AM 2/10/00 -0600, you wrote: >The four-volume SOME PROMINENT VIRGINIA FAMILIES by Louise Pecquet du >Bellet was originally published in 1907. Genealogical Publishing Company >reprinted it in 1976, combining volumes so that now it is only two >books. There is no index, so putting these books online would enable >searching and increase their usefulness. Does Genealogical Publishing >Company hold a copyright, do you think? How would someone go about >finding out? 1200+ pages would be a lot of trouble to scan, if only to >find that it could not be put online...... If the books were published in 1907, they are in the public domain. Once in the public domain, always in the public domain. Even if the material were published in a new book with new material added, only the new material would be protected and then only if originality is involved in the new material. So putting two volumes of public domain material into one volume results in .... what? One volume of public domain material. http://www.rootsweb.com/~mikegoad/copyright1.htm Mike Goad