Dear Kosciusko County Digest, One very compelling reason for states'/counties' increased charges for vital records copies is the "explosion" in the numbers of researchers who are requesting these copies. Justifiably or not, records offices are taking advantage of this situation as most businesses would: by charging what the traffic will bear. As long as this demand exists, state/county record offices, and most other record/copy sources such as archives and libraries, will set their prices accordingly. Are the high document/copy charges legitimate in the face of increased demand? Many clerks in various records offices will say "yes"; they have to stop their "regular duties" and take varying amounts of time to locate, copy and send a record (and a bill), and their offices and work routine are interrupted when researchers arrive in person at the "office" and want access to material (an option available less and less often), often located in boxes in back rooms or basements. Many clerks also do not feel that assisting family history researchers is part of their job description in any way, and that researchers should be willing to pay $10.00 - $15.00 for the "extras" of records searching and/or copying. My on-site research in many states and counties has shown that while some of these concerns are often legitimate, depending on the amount of "search traffic" the office gets, fee structures are often designed more to discourage requests for records than to reflect actual costs involved in searching, copying or sending a document. On several on-site research trips, I have heard clerks admit just this point, often apologizing for what they (and I )considered an inflated document fee. The temptation to try to legislate fee controls at the federal, state and county levels is strong, but I feel that genealogists take the risk of "shooting themselves in the foot" unless a fee-control campaign is thoroughly planned, tightly organized, and fast-moving. Records resources are so vast and varied and genealogists (even when banded into "societies") so many, scattered, and personal-agenda driven as to make any coordinated attempt to control fees horrendously difficult, to say the least. Additionally, records offices of all types could quite easily respond to a perceived threat to cut their revenues by making fewer and fewer records available to the reseacher; restricted or non-existent records availability is increasingly common, and "stonewalling" has been elevated to an art form in all levels of "government" offices. Unfortunately, genealogists need access to records, and the "record keepers" are well aware of this; why else have a gold-sealed, multi-colored, "official" vital record copy (at a premium price) as the only option? Or, like some county court houses I have visited, have one charge to see if the record is available at all, and then an additional one to copy it? Or, having no access to copying machines in at least two state archives I visited; one could sign up, leave material, and wait for an one -two hours while clerks did the copying for 50 cents a page! My personal response to increasing charges has been to draw a line between "curiosity" and "necessity" when requesting vital records or copying documents, and using published compilations as much as possible to discover and/or verify material. Some very expensive requests, including two to the very pricey and extremely inefficient (death certificates for two people who did not remotely resemble the information in my request) "black hole" of Washington state's public records office, have reinforced the wisdom of this course. Being "choosy" often makes my information-gathering more difficult, but at least I'm still solvent. Realistically, the only motivator (barring a massive rebellion of furious family historians) to drive down prices is competition, and as long as the government resources are "the only game in town" for certain kinds of records, there isn't any. Joan C. Taylor (researching JONES in K county) I