On Thu, May 14, 2009 8:29 am, Karl Schien wrote: > > Hello old members of that list! > I am still alive and very busy in researching my local history. >   > Hello David, > Birstein belongs to the "Hessische Landeskirche von Kurhessen Waldeck". > That Organisation did not allow the LDS filming the church books. The It's amazing what the power of fear can do. I will never cease to be amazed at the human capacity for idiocy. Like we geeks in the software business say. First axiom of Software Programming: "Software Programming is the battle between programmers trying to make bigger and better idiot-proof software and God trying to make bigger and better idiots. So far God is winning." This axiom could be applied to many other aspect of the human condition. All these places have old crumbling records that will someday no longer exist, along comes a group of people who offer to preserve them for posterity at no cost to them, and the response is ... Don't you dare! If only we had more governments like Norway, who preserved all the records out of their own budget and made them available to everyone for free! The Roman Catholic Church could do this if they wanted to. Heck they could even make a money stream out of it. Now I discover there are other holdouts. Ugh!