GF> A side note: In fact, the best dream I could have is if a company GF> like yours would go to Macoupin County or any county and offer them GF> a very goodly sum of money for all the pre 1925 records in the dome GF> which are rotting and then the pre 1925 records in the offices and GF> I could buy them on CD. I don't think anybody, except perhaps the LDS church, has the financial resources to do this on any large scale. The current scanning and conversion technology is such that microfilming is a more cost-effective solution to dealing with older records today, particularly "rotting" ones, although the situation may change over the next 1 to 5 years. Ancestry is looking at ways of scanning more original records, but this "dream" of putting large quantities of old records on CD or online is probably still off in the future. I would also note that there are government officials, at all levels (and including some of my former bosses), who don't want help solving such problems and create as many roadblocks as possible to prevent outsiders from helping them. Ancestry does recognize the problems of preserving and making available records in county courthouses and like places. Loretto (Lou) Szucs, our vice president of publishing, and I discuss this frequently. Lou once worked for me in NARA's Chicago region, she has been a member of the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board, and she is currently the membership vice president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. We have both discussed preservation issues with John Daly, director of the Illinois State Archives, and will be publishing an article by him in an upcoming issue of Ancestry Magazine. Dr. Daly recognizes, as I did when I was at the National Archives, that genealogists pay the bills, both for archival institutions and for county clerks. I found the genealogical community to be a potent political force when properly mobilized--that's how the National Archives got money to make census microfilm widely available and got its independence from the General Services Administration. Personally, I don't think that money is the major problem in dealing with issues like pre-1925 records in the dome. It may be a contributing factor, but many, many local records custodians around the country have found tax money, or foundation or government grant money, or have made commercial deals to preserve their records. I think the real problem is elected officials who are not motivated to try. Some may be ignorant of the resources that are available, and others may be anti-constituent and getting away with it, but the right combination of education, publicity, and good old-fashioned political heat can work wonders. I don't think Ancestry, or any commercial firm, can take the lead in mobilizing genealogists to lobby for better records access and preservation, but we can provide a forum for local and national societies to better communicate with each other and with Dr. Daly and his colleagues in other states. I don't know how many of you followed the fight last summer over NARA's plan to close several regional archives. The first person to blow the whistle on NARA was Lou Szucs, in an editorial in Ancestry Magazine. While I don't think she would want to single out any specific city or county for criticism, I'm sure she would welcome a well written article with a well thought out strategy for motivating local officials to live up to their responsibilities, or an article relating a local success story as a case study in how to get such results. In short, Ancestry can't grant Gloria's dream, but there are probably things we can do to help. John M. Scroggins Director of Electronic Records Ancestry.com