Michael, I think you may be correct to an extent. I had a conversation with our priest here in my community, about a trip to Illinois that I made last fall. I was thinking of looking into Birth or Baptismal records for my grandfather. I was told the Peoria Diocese in Illinois, would not release records to anyone but family. While talking to our Priest he said that the Catholic Church policy was to not release info to LDS because of their policy of baptizing the dead, which is what their genealogy is all about. He said LDS gets the records other ways, but they won't get them from the Church. This is not an Irish thing. From what I gathered it is universal. After all the Catholic Church is not in the business of genealogy. I have never used LDS myself, but will if I need to. People I know who have used LDS have praised them for their help. I think you can get copies of church records at the individual parishes ?????? Bonni On Feb 21, 2008, at 9:05 AM, Dunleavy, Michael: #CB - BC wrote: > I have been user of the services available from the LDS Church for > about 25 years and find that they are probably the institution that > has done the most for genealogical research anywhere in the world. > I don't believe that they have any copyright on the material in > their posession, and if they do, they certainly don't enforce it. I > have hundreds of copies of documents that I either obtained at my > local LDS centre or which I obtained by mail from the main library > in Salt Lake City. If there is an impediment to obtaining copies of > parish records at the National Library, I suspect that it's the > Catholic Church. > > -----Original Message----- > From: irl-limerick-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:irl-limerick-bounces@rootsweb.com] > Sent: February 21, 2008 4:36 AM > To: IRL-LIMERICK-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [IRL-LIMERICK] LDS & films > > > I am not a member of the LDS Church, however I have used their > services on many occasions, and I think we should be thanking them > for their work. The time and effort to film records is huge > (and I have done this for our own Church records) and I guess quite > expensive, however the Church doesn't charge for you to view the > film. The only cost incurred is when postage has to be > paid, and I by choice always make a small donation towards the > electricity etc. at their reading room. I guess they > believe that for the effort they have made to have the millions of > records available throughout the world they deserve to be able to > copyright that film. I support that concept. > > I am currently transcribing online thousands of records which they > intend (at least that is my understanding) to make available online > free, so let's be grateful to all who volunteer in whatever capacity > to help us in our research. > > Megan McKenzie > South Australia. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-LIMERICK-request@rootsweb.com > with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and > the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-LIMERICK-request@rootsweb.com > with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and > the body of the message Any Society that would give up liberty for a little security, will deserve neither and loose both. Benjamin Franklin 1759