The Illinois State Archives I was referring to is the IRAD (Illinoise Regional Archives Depository). Their website is: <http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/archives.html> . I still haven't been able to fully understand their website and how to search it. It had alot of links and I can never seem to find what I'm looking for. Nonetheless, the IRAD office is extremely helpful. I haven't requested an obituary through them, but I did request a death certificate. All I had was the year he died and his name. They searched their archives and found not death record. They referred me to the county courthouse who had the copy of the death certificate. The wonderful thing about IRAD is that they do not charge for their research time. I had sent them a check which included research fees as well as the copy of the record. In their return letter they stated that they do not charge research fees only copy fees (which is $1.00 per copy - no minimum fee). Also, IRAD picks up the bill for postage so you don't have to send them the customary SASE envelope. Since they couldn't find the record, they returned my check and my SASE envelope. I was very impressed with their professionalism and generosity. Best of all, I sent my requestion, from Anchorage, Alaska, on the Jan 29th and received a letter back from them on Feb 10. That's only a week and a half. That's the fastest research response I've ever gotten. I highly recommend IRAD to all researchers. Their (snail-mail) address is: Illinois Regional Archives Depository William Hall Illinois State University Campus Box 5500 Normal, IL 61790-5500 ---------- From: "shirley franklin"<[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 22:43:05 -600 To: [email protected] Subject: obits You say Illinois State Archives. Is that the state of Illinois or the college of Illinois State?