We cannot copyright old journals, records or documents. We can copyright our own format of presentation (which means that cannot be copied and sent as a gift, but CAN be transcribed and sent, just as she was doing. Books full of documents in their entirity would be copyrighted for the transcribed versions and format. The book itself could not be legally copied, but could be re-transcribed and sent. Abstracts are another story. They ARE copyrightable. An abstract is what we do ourselves to place the important parts and names and dates of wills, deeds, etc. There is more, but I would suggest that anyone who wants to know more go to the following site of the Library of Congress, where copyrights are made. Judy Canant http://lcweb.loc.gov/ Click on the spot that says "copyright office" When you are through with that, save the site. You will find gobs of wonderful information and history there. In a message dated 9/20/00 8:29:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time, SMartin583@aol.com writes: << Subj: [GASCREVE] Question on "copyright" Date: 9/20/00 8:29:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: SMartin583@aol.com Reply-to: GASCREVE-L@rootsweb.com To: GASCREVE-L@rootsweb.com I got to thinking about Nancy Anglin's message and the other (which I do not have at hand) that chastized listers for "publishing" copyrighted information on the List. Just a Question, so don't go getting out the heavy armor and big guns!!! What's the difference between someone doing a lookup for you from a book they have in their personal library, looking up a fact or story from a library book at the public library, and sending it to someone to use in their personal family genealogy or history? Is there a difference between me looking the information up in a book on a bookshelf and copying the information down, and what Nancy was doing for us? Since the information comes from public records anyway, and she is not plaguerizing the published material by using it as her own, word for word, is she really violating the copyright? >>