The index created by Bill Donath is a great tool for finding news articles in that time-frame. You don't have to spend hours reading microfilm that contains the small newspaper print they used back then - going up and down the columns of each page. Mr. Donath did all that for you. It is listed by: year, month, day page # column# subject of the contents of the article (court note, will, visiting relatives, death, etc) Thanks Bill for your many hours of work. This is a massive work effort, and Mr. Donath should be congratulated for taking it on. I have not looked at the index, but I got and read the book of Civil War letters. It was very interesting, especially the views frequently expressed by soldiers and the Herald editors -- a major anti slavery position justifying the war, but we don't necessarily want freed slaves in our Illinois back yard! NIMBY even then! They were also pretty tough on people with opposing positions. I understand that the Herald was a strongly Republican paper. Are there microfilms of the period for Logan County newspapers taking a different political stance? Any plans to look at them? ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour