Renee said: <<I started all these volunteer projects because of kind volunteers that have helped me break down my own walls.>> I agree totally. I do lookups for free wherever it's allowed. We're allowed to do this using Ancestry so I help people out when I can. I transcribe for FreeCEN from my own CDs so I'm able to do lookups from my (unchecked) transcripts. I also live near to the Louisiana State Archives and also to the Parish (County) Library where the newspaper archives are kept. I've provided lookups from here and never take any money for postage or copying fees. Like Renee, I suggest paying the favour forward. I've been the recipient of many kind acts myself. It's especially important to those of us exiled overseas (or imprisoned at home with small children!) <<It will also give you a feel for how hard it can be to index correctly.>> You bet! I hear people bleating all the time about the quality of this index or that transcription but I'd bet that the complainers haven't indexed a census or parish register in their lives. That's not to say that things couldn't be improved but the indexes available now are a whole lot better than no index at all. I suspect that FreeCEN will be the gold standard once it has a critical mass of data available and they have servers capable of taking the load. But quality takes time and we may all have joined our ancestors by then!! Good hunting, Irene