but can someone please explain where the ear is listed in the PLZEN archives? *********************************** RE accessing records on line from Plzen Archives. When you get page to search for record content, if you put in the name of the town, and spell at least a couple letters correctly (the way the archives has catalogued them), a list should pop up (actually down) that shows all the towns in the region with the same name; you just have to select the one you want...if there is more than one you recognize. Sometimes the list will show/contain several towns with same name, with different district parishs. In some cases the town had multiple parish designations over time, so just pick the one you think is right for your time frame...it really doesn't matter because 'books' covering that town will be displayed when you hit the button... When the list of records/books is displayed, you will then see the timeframes that are covered by each book in the information displayed - there are 3 columns that represent birth, marriage, and death; if that book in that entry/line has any records of that type, the dates covered will appear. Also, look on the right; one column will indicate the number of pages available; if 0, that means they are not on line yet. The magnifying glass gets clicked to allow you to start searching the records. When a page appears, arrows at the top will allow you to go forward or back in the paging through the document. Another thing you should look at is under column Obec.... this indicated the number of towns/village recorded in the document. If you hover your cursor over the number, it will show you the names of the villages in that book. The records displayed apparently will list all the parishes where records can be found for a town, including all the other towns in thosee parishs. With all the parish records listed, some books may not cover town of interest - hence admonishment to check the book content. At one time, the towns in parish were indicated when record made; one page may list several towns in order of event record made. At another time, each town in parish had a section where only entries for that town were made, so you have to go to that area of the book to search - great if there are lots of records in book, since you don't have to look at each page for an appropriate town. Later, each village/town got their own book...And sometimes, all record types were in same book; other records may have a had a book for each record type - so columns shown from info extracted from index important to determine what book you need to look at for various records - also, sort of skip first couple columns, since it is more 'general' info that indicates a region, and, for me, confuses the issue...good only IF you know that designation for your town/villlage of interest. I have found that the information for each entry/physical book is indicated whether or not the records are on line; in other words, what they have in their inventory is listed. If there is not a entry listed in the index, there is no book extant for that time period/town/record type, or maybe you have the place name wrong and no records exist or no place of that name - I've found this in some entries I've selected from their list; the error message will say something like there was no office in that place that made those records - if so, select a different place/parish name in the index search page, Hope this helps. Good luck! Anettka