Another point of view............You are probably not going to want to hear this but for the sake of equal opportunity, I will voice my opinion. - the cost for maintaining those records for the future is going up. - having indexed, microfilmed, etc will encure additional cost - staffing facilities cost will be rising, and if you work, like I do, the hours are terrible so I can never get to the facilities without taking a day off, so having them open additional hours will cost. I don't know when the last price increase was but think we are all lucky to have this info available at any cost. More and more info is becoming available free on the internet and with more and more people getting into genealogy every day, the available info will increase. I, for one, am going to put my energies into writing letters about something meaningful to me, like gun control, better education, drug awareness, AIDS research, and so on and so on. Just my opinon. Christine -----Original Message----- From: Merle Bellmer [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 6:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ILWASHIN] NARA Prices We ALL need to let NARA know how we feel about the price incresase. I can understand a price increase, but from $10 to $40 is going to be a discouragement to many people to pursue one of the best sources of family information. Some of the pension files contain marriage records, the next-best-thing to birth certificates for children, places of residence, witnesses who are often relatives, etc. etc. etc. If LOTS of people would write NARA, I think it would be quite an impression to NARA. DON'T put it off until "tomorrow". Express your opinion NOW, please. Dot