Hi Elaine, Thank you for your reply. It is always refreshing to find Irishmen (women) who are interested in genealogy and the accessing of records for those who are unable to visit Ireland. Does not the IGP post county information with names and years of baptisms and marriages at http://www.irishgenealogy.ie in order to advertise the services of the local Heritage Centers? Is this practice permissible only when being used as a commercial advertising tool? There are many transcriptions of LDS films online. But should I discover that posting my extractions of particulars for a limited area in a county violates copyright, then I will post only the townlands, dates and if permissible the surnames for which I have collated data and allow people to contact me for any further details. Gathering data for specific townlands should in itself give hint to many relationships not apparent in indexes which designate nothing more than a poor law union. I�ve waited many years for the Local Heritage Centers to complete their indexing project. Realizing what an overwhelming task this must be, there remain many records that have not yet been completed. Unfortunately, the ones which are most relevant to my own search are not in the databases for my counties of concern. To unearth this bit of information itself was quite a task. The Galway center was forthright in supplying me with a list of their holdings. Another Center requested 15 Euros to fill out a Registration Form in response to my query of which records were held. I�ve learned the hard way to first confirm which records are in their possession as I have paid dearly for a list of � possibles� that had nothing to do with the RC parishes of my concern, for the time frames I indicated. The reason being�they did not hold the records which were needed to unearth my family data. Still, they continued the search and charged me for doing so??? As the RC parishes I need have not been filmed by the LDS, I propose accessing the only data available which covers my areas of concern: the Civil records. Albeit the dates are later than I need, perhaps some clues will be unearthed. As for the quality of the films you have been transcribing�are there any plans to re-film using the imaging enhancing technology to which you referred? How does the IGP presently handle the data on the pages that are �unreadable�? Are there any plans to convert the computerized data to CD and sell it to the public as was done with the Australian civil records (at a very �stiff� price I might add)? Is there a projected completion date for the indexing project? Thank you for bearing with me. I apologise if I sounded as if I were �shooting the messenger�. Much appreciated, Tim Berry elshie <elshie@eircom.net> wrote:Hi Tim, I'm a voluntary transcriber on a cross-border project that transcribes pre-civil registration Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, by county and by church, from films obtained from the National Library in Dublin (which holds many of the pre-civil registration parish records still extant). These records were filmed quite a long time ago and the quality is not good, they need to be re-filmed using image enhancing technology to minimise - as far as is possible given the quality of some of those old records and the handwritings therein - any misinterpretation. The GRO records are post-civil registration. There was quite some discussion on another list (Sligo or Limerick I think) some months ago about who would own copyright to the old church records and whether, therefore, it could be breaching any copyright/ownership to post them to a web site without permission. By extension, this question should be looked into re the GRO records as these are State records. The project I assist - Irish Genealogy Project - is a purely Irish one (that is, we use copies of the original church records, not LDS films), has the permission of the religions concerned but ONLY for Baptisms, Marriages and Burials (first communion and confirmation are not to be included) up until civil registration began. The data bases to which the transcribed information is transferred are then provided to the family history desks of the relevant county libraries, and also held by the IGP. It is my one regret - being a family researcher as well as a transcriber - that this information is not (at the moment at least) intended for online searching. Good luck with your project. Elaine ==== IRL-GALWAY Mailing List ==== To unsub or change your Irl-Galway mailing mode: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/IRL/IRL-GALWAY.html ============================== Jumpstart your genealogy with OneWorldTree. Search not only for ancestors, but entire generations. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13972/rd.ashx --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals