Hi Walt, When I visited in Danville two years ago, I visited the County Clerk's office, which I had already had extensive correspondence with and telephone conversations with, and the court house across the street. I have to say that there is a big difference between the two locations and that Machelle Long at the Clerk's office was the nicest person I have dealt with in obtaining vital records. The nice thing was that for all the records I obtained through the mail, I never had to pay for something that wasn't mine. Machelle would fill out a card and send it to me and ask me if I thought that person was mine. If I thought it was, I was to send back the $7. I never had to pay $7 and then find out. When I arrived in person, they allowed me to go through all the card catalogs and copy information and then when it came to getting death certificates, they had me give them the info on the ones I thought might be mine and then looked them up. I wasn't allowed to look at them first, of course, but they then made copies of the ones I asked for. I have to say that they were very gracious and patient with me. It turns out that one of the birth records I couldn't find before was actually there. My great-grandparents had first named my greataunt something else and not the name we always knew her by. So, I was glad I came in person and went through the vital record cards. The court house across the street is a different story. They are much more bureaucratic and not used to dealing with the public. It took me quite some time to get the records I needed from them (a will, some divorce papers, and a naturalization record). I had requested the naturalization record a year before, paid for it, and it was never sent. It turns out no one wanted to look for it because it was in the basement. I ended up going through dozens of dusky, musty old books in the basement before finding it. They made me do all my own copying. But, after spending a couple of hours with me, the staff did start to warm up to me and finally let me take a picture with them to take home with me. It was amazing to me the difference between the two different departments right across the street from one another. It just seemed like two different philosophies. Michele