I must apologise to all who tried to join us for the regular Thursday night genealogy chat. We must have been experiencing difficulty with Volano, I will have Frank contact them tomorrow. I did get down and talk to the County Clerk, Vici Otte, yesterday. She tells me that she gave all the old records to the Stephenson Co. Genealogy Society and they are supposed to have them at the Library, however, she hasn't gotten there to make sure. As she gets more familiar with the laws and practices, Vici plans to make other records available. However, the genealogy searches are very time consuming for her staff. Maybe we can volunteer to help. I am told that the genealogy society "denies or refuses to discuss" having the records Vici referred to. Since I am not a member I am not privvy to that info. I was also that the Society sunk a bit of change into buying some microfilm of marriage records and those are at the library and they will make copies of those records for $1 a piece. Lou -- http://www.freeportillinois.com/index3.htm