I had not heard about any program to microfilm old archival material in CR untill after the disastrous flood a few years ago (can't remember if that was in 200 or 2002). Since then I have seen reports that Czech archives are now restricting access to fragile originals and they give researchers microfilms instead. The impression I have is that the microfilming is an on-going process. I have not heard of any of the films made by Czech archivists being available for sale to any institution outside the Czech Republic. I have heard that professional researchers now often get microfilms instead of originals when they visit a Czech archive. It will be a very long time before ALL of the Czech archival material has been fillmed. One would assume they would start with the most fragile older records but who can say what their priorities might be?? In the meantime I do not know if they are still passing out originals for any specific dates. I suspect that there may be different rules in different archives. The German Reichssippenamt that liberated a lot of church records from Poland during WW II also gathered some in CZ. All of the "liberated" records were microfilmed and the LDS has copies of some CZ church records that may be from that group. Protestant records are considered to be in the public domain. Catholic records are considered to be the property of the RCatholic church so originals taken to Germany had to be returned to the nation where they were collected only if they were RCatholic. I don't know what status of Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic have or if any of the records that may have belonged to those parishes had to be returned. The German's Catholic national archive in Regensburg has made it known that they tried to negotiate a plan which would give easy access to the records they had to return to Poland and CR. But there is no way they can oversee how Poland and CR are living up to that promise. The archive also announced considerable concern about the availability of those records because, they said, many of the films they have are not very good and the documents on them are hard to read. I believe that the films held by the LDS may be copies of those same "bad" films rather than a new effort to produce better copies done before the RCatholic material had to go back to CR and Poland. Poland is another country that gives only limited access to archival materials and so far I have not heard of any widespread microfilming program there. Maybe some other list members know about that? Both Poland and the Czech Republic have privacy laws that affect the distribution of some records that are less than 100 years old. Austria repsects those laws as well as any that the Republic of Austria has on their own archival material. The LDS has been able to negotiate a system to handle privacy-restricted materials in Austria. It is possible that has not yet been accomplished in CR or Poland and that is one reason they are not allowed to do any filming in those places. Slovakia is one country that has permitted the LDS to film their archives, to include very old church records. But Slovakia keeps the copyright on those films and there are other aspects of the contract between Slovakia and the LDS that affect distribution of those films somewhat. I have not heard of any program by the Slovak Archives to do any of their own filming. Does anyone know if they are doing that? Or is the LDS project the only one producing films for Slovakia? To further complicate the church records question, the LDS has recently begun to use English titles for catalog records in another language. For example, they now use the English "Metrical Books" for Greek Catholic parish records entered in the catalog for Poland during the last year or two. I have not had the opportunity to study the 1600-plus titles that come up with a KEYWORD search for "Czechoslovakia church records" as yet and I don't know if more recent entries are in English in that section of the catalog. I know from conversations with the head librarian for Austrian military records that it will be a long time before all of the films they have on hand are in the catalog. The last conversation we had indicated there are probably more than military records 1000 films in SLC that have not yet been cataloged. I don't know if that is also true of the church records. I also don't know if the church records collected in Czechoslovakia during World War II would be cataloged under Bohemiaor Moravia or other names of the former A-H lands or if they are all under CZ no matter what dates they include. The only thing a researcher can do is to search the catalog for whaatever subject using ALL of tjhe place names that applied to an anceral birthplace over time. Use each one in the same search string with something like "church records" or Evangelical parish or something else that might be a category that includes as many possibillities as can be. Using all of the place names gives a better chance to find everything available. Do that with a KEYWORD, not a PLACE search. If there are too many hits then add a denomination or something else that will limit the search a little. It is my understanding that when the LDS gets an order for a film they check if they have a copy on hand. If not, they make a copy and send it. If the patron renews 3 times at a local FHC, the FHC has the option to keep the film in a permanent collection so it is not returned to SLC. When they have a copy of an ordered film on hand in SLC the film usually arrives at a local FHC very quickly. When they have to make a new copy for an FHC patron, it may not arrive for 3 weeks or more. Karen