In a message dated 4/15/2009 11:03:20 PM Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: > Sorry, I should have qualified that. I was referring to American sites. > It > is not unusual to come across a clerk in America who will say there are no > local records, because the courthouse burned down. S-o-o-o-o-o-o true. While researching my Hessian forebear, I got the explanation that an earlier researcher had borrowed the book, never put it back, and it had been lost for years. But they let me into the storage vault anyway. I looked up on the top of the book cabinet in the vault and saw a dirty old book...the ORIGINAL that she had described as lost. In it I found that my forebear had signed his will dated 1832 in a clear hand. Now THAT was special. ************** Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000003)