That is what we are trying to stop from doing. Its fine to microfilm them but to destroy the originals would be a very costly mistake. The State of Virginia by allowing this destruction to happen is destroying a very important historical documents that date back to the 1600s when people first started to arrive in the New World. What I don't understand is why they won't donate them to the historical Society, Library of Virginia, or to other Genealogical Societies. Simply the lack of storage is a very poor excuse for destroyng these documents. Massachusetts has just as much historical papers and they haven't threatened to destroy for lack of space. Microfilming them is not always a cost effective way of retaining these histroical documents. When they are microfilmed people who do this often make mistakes. They don't photograph them properly, they miss pages, and sometimes destroy the whole document in the process. Look at some of the Census records we have. Some of them you can't read from the microfilm, some of them have black splotches on their lens which transfer to the films. Historic Wills that date back 400 yrs are hard to read in the immediate copy. If they are hard to read in their original state microfiming will just make it harder to read. If we the people let these States do these things because they lack space we stand to lose a very important part of our history and heritage. Our ancestors when writing their last testant and will wrote them with the idea of protecting their families and heirs and leaving a piece of history when they were gone. It is just the State of Virginia,but there is the State of Florida who want to do away with their State Library which houses all of their important and historical documents, The state of Washington is another state who wants to do away with their historical documentation. We are the family researchers must ban together and let our government know that these are precious records that should be retained for ever not thrown away because they lack storage. The least they could do is to offer them to the Genealogical Societues or have them transcribed and put online for the world to see. One prime example of retaining these documents is to be able to prove who were the heirs. I was trying to connect my Spencer line and I was missing the name of one son. When I thought I had the rright father I was told that he didn't have a son named John. Well when I found the will in New York he indeed did have a son John which connected my line from the First Spencers to come to the New Wolrd. Without that will I would have been still looking for the connection. So yes we all need to let the Senators, Delegates, Congressman, and our President know that these papers are very important to all of the people of the United States not just that state. We need to make sure they retain these copies. I don't understand how they can lack for storage space nor the money to fund these records when they can vote themselve huge wage increases as they did this past year and then complain they don't have the money to continue restoration or continue to keep these documents available to the World. Jean Payton ----- Original Message ----- From: "BILL & KARLI DYE" <bdye@tcac.net> To: <JONES-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 6:30 PM Subject: Re: [Jones] VIRGINIA SENATE BILL DESTRUCTION OF WILL FILES > Thanks, I read what the summary was. Appreciate you giving me the > directions. > > Does that mean that as long as the wills are microfilmed then they can be > destroyed -- like it says in the last line? > > Karli > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <Jnshowl@aol.com> > > Wish this was a hoax. Go to the link below > > http://legis.state.va.us/ > > and type in this bill number SB818 > > Jackie Howell > > > > > ==== JONES Mailing List ==== > Direct your questions, comments or problems to the listowner at jones-admin@rootsweb.com > For detailed instructions on subscribing and unsubscribing visit this site: > http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/j/jones.html > browse the archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/jones > search the archives: http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=JONES > Unusual JONES given names, http://members.aol.com/stjones/jones/oddnames.html > >