This is in response to the postings about the parish priests and the way they hold onto the parish record books. I had a similar experience when I was in Ballydonnell, Mullinanone, Co Tipp with the pp there. He was as helpful as he felt he could be, I guess. I imagine some of them get a bit fed up with Americans doing our family research. But at leas this priest told me why he wouldn't let me touch the book. These were his exact words: "some bastard of an American ripped several pages out when I left them with the book, so now it does not leave my hands." While I could have tried to convince him that we aren't all pigs, I could see his point. We could agree that there is a special place in hell for people like that. It made me very sad that I was not able to leisurely peruse that lovely book with all that spidery handwriting in it, but who could say for sure that the very records I needed were not among those that some bastard of an American ripped out of the book. I'm still looking...Erin -