Jay, Thank you for your kind and generous words! Appreciated! It has been my experience with the various villages that I've researched (over and over again) that I've always been able to find the baptismal date so, my curiosity is alerted when it is suggested that that kind of record is not always found. I suppose that there are rare instances when the scribe forgot to record it for one reason or another but, that would likely be the exception I think. Do you have specific examples? The St.Pete records are not infallible. I found 3 consecutive entries for one village with children all having a different surname but the record indicated that all three had identical parents! Some miracle, eh? Perhaps the scribe was "distracted" a bit? The on-line index IS a good tool, primarily because it usually tells you what film number and entry number to refer to when you do your actual research. It was never ment to be the final word. Perhaps I wasn't as clear on that point as I should have been. Indeed, we owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to those who put in the thousands of hours so that we might have an easier job of locating the information in the original document. Regards, Curt.