Hi Deanna, In response to your "wondering" email, your thoughts seem so sensible--I "wonder" what it would take to make them happen! I am amazed, having worked in the business world for years, at the lack of "businesslike" procedures in some of this genealogy world we love to visit! I share your frustration at the requirements that keep information from being readily available to researchers. It's kind of amazing; because of the Freedom of Information Act, the Social Security Administration releases personal information about people who died just a few months ago with social security numbers; however, the death records of those same people can't be released for 50 + years to the general public! Perhaps there is a solution that we just haven't thought of yet--like, each of us volunteering a few hours each month at a local facility to transcribe records into a format that would be Internet friendly! I'm sure open to suggestion! Regards to everyone and best wishes for a restful Labor Day, Marilyn Stern (Austin, TX) In a message dated 9/5/99 11:51:06 AM Central Daylight Time, SkyBirdy@aol.com writes: > Hi All; > I was wondering if (a big IF) the New York Archives will ever put the > death, birth index on-line. It would save us a heck of a lot of time and > also > save them a lot of time from people writing in and they have to look up the > index numbers themselves. It would save all a lot of time and work. Deanna > LaVoy-Lewis