In a message dated 23/05/2007 17:30:49 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: over the odds (£7 for one certificate) which may or may not be the right one and this only since there has been such a vast increase in the number of people who are doing research. Capitalisation is I believe the term for this type of overcharging. £7 for one certificate is not "over the odds". What I understand from that phrase is that "the odds" are "the usual charge". The £7 is a statutory charge and is the only one for a certificate bought from a local registrar (the FRC charges more). It has actually been set for a number of years now, much longer than I remember earlier price levels having been maintained. In case it interests you, in the NDFHS Journal, Vol 1, No 1, October 1975 (of which I was editor) I published a paragraph, written by myself, complaining that the GRO had just increased their fees to £4.50 from £1.25, which I pointed out was an increase of 260%! That, of course, is equivalent to the FRC fee today. Perhaps that is what you refer to when you mention the vast increase in the number of people who are doing research. The numbers actively interested jumped upwards in the mid-70s and continued to grow rapidly until about one to two years ago. Since then those actively doing original research into families has slumped, mainly because many people think, wrongly, that they can do it themselves via the internet (they can't). I do not count looking something up on a web-site as research. It is merely the preliminary step to some of the serious research that will be needed. You refer to "capitalisation"; I think you probably mean "capitalism". You are still wrong - capital has little to do with it; it is just an application of inevitable market forces. If sales could not be obtained at that price then the price would come down. Best wishes for your continued research. Geoff Nicholson