Chris I am so glad that you pointed that out-- throughout New England there are still amny tiny towns who do not have a data base or a fee schedule-- please foks lets remember that when we are doing our research. As I have traveled around the country I hav efound most clerks to be gracious, friendly and helpful. A couple have not been and when asked they will admit that some genealogists are very demanding. Lets all stive to be the ones who are friendly and non demanding. JUDIE ----- Original Message ----- From: Christopher Brooks <trib@tributaries.org> To: <CT-RIVER-VALLEY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 8:48 AM Subject: Re: [CRV] Town Clerks [WAS: Bushey/Meacham/Mitchell, etc.] > A reader wrote: > > :I am doing research on my husband's family. They were located all > :over Concord, Vt. Waterford,East Concord, Lunenburg as well as > :Northumberland, NH, Lisbon, Bethlehem, & Lancaster. [snip] > :I have written to several of the towns and I get no reply. I wrote > :to Dalton, NH and they charge 12.00 per research item. [snip] > > I'd like to comment about the town clerk in northern New Hampshire. I > can't speak for the Vermont towns mentioned, though they're within 25 > miles of where I live, but I was assistant town clerk of one of the > New Hampshire towns mentioned. > > Lancaster, the biggest of the towns mentioned, had 3,280 people in > the 2000 census. Dalton had 927 people, and is consistently, from > census to census, one of the poorest towns in the state. Dalton's > very limited town services are paid for entirely through property > taxes. The current municipal operating budget of $536,406 does not > include subsidies for non-residents interested in their Dalton > ancestors. The budget probably does have a few hundred dollars for > the town clerk, but that money will be allocated to expenses only > (utilities, postage, phone), and accounted for to the penny next > March at town meeting. > > The northern New Hampshire town clerk is almost always a part-time > elected official, generally unsalaried by the town, and in the > smallest towns often working from home. For each official > performance of duty the town clerk receives a state-specified fee -- > perhaps eight bucks for an auto registration, a dollar for a dog > license, six bucks for a marriage registration. Town clerks don't > handle voter registrations, which fall to elected supervisors of the > checklist, who receive a per diem for days worked by law in election > years. We have as few elections as possible because "they cost > money," as our elected officials remind us from time to time. > > In a town the size of Dalton, there aren't that many duties in a > given year, and so the Dalton town clerk might accumulate $8,000 a > year in fees. It's essentially a part-time job with split-shift hours > (to accommodate citizen access) for which the compensation might > work out to $8.00 an hour -- McDonald's money. Unless the town has > established fees for vital record lookups, the town clerk may not be > compensated at all for time researching a research query "from away." > If the Dalton town clerk has, with the permission of the selectmen, > established a $12.00 fee for VR lookups, then good for her! She will > be paid something for her time. The fact that there is a fee suggests > that she has done lookups before and that requests will in fact be > answered. The existence of a fee simply reflects the principle of no > free lunch. > > It's important, when sending a query to a rural town clerk, to > (a) Enclose an SASE (or better, obtain a phone number and > call, saving the necessity of a written response). > (b) Offer explicitly and up-front to cover fees and expenses. > (c) Be courteous -- as a non-resident, you're asking a favor, > not demanding a publicly-funded service to which you are > entitled as a taxpayer somewhere else. > (d) Remember that almost none of these towns have their vital > records indexed. For $12.00, the Dalton town clerk will go > through the old leatherbound volumes page by page > to find the requested item, and then prepare and send you > a written certificate. That's an incredible bargain. > > Chris > > Christopher Brooks > Littleton, NH > > > > ==== CT-RIVER-VALLEY Mailing List ==== > Karima, List Administrator mailto:CT-River-Valley-admin@rootsweb.com > Browse the CT-RIVER-VALLEY-L Threaded Archives at > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/CT-RIVER-VALLEY >