I am going to TRY to explain something that I have added to the Boyle County, KY site that is confusing some, so please bear with me. I am in the process of adding Boyle County Births to the website. On each of the pages, in addition to the data that I have added, there is a link to "Search the KY Birth Index at Vital Search". Vital Search is a network, which offers some of its data for free, and there is a premium membership that allows you to access additional searches for some of its databases. A large number of the databases that are loaded at Vital Search are from western states, most predominately CA. They have added the entire KY Birth index for the years 1911-2000, as well as the marriages from about 1973-2000, recent divorces and the KY Death index as well. ALL of the KY databases and searches are free. I have linked the Boyle County site direct to the KY Birth index, but when the page comes up, there is a very prominent advertisement for Net Detective. THIS IS ONLY AN ADVERTISEMENT, AND JOINING NET DETECTIVE HAS NO BEARING ON YOUR ACCESSING THE DATA. To start a search, you just need to click on the "Begin Search/Reset" link in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The search screen will then come up and you can search by as many of the fields as desired. The "%" is a wildcard, so if you are only wanting to search by the first letter of the child's last name that begins with "N", you would enter "N%" (with no quotes) in the surname line. I agree, the advertisements are annoying, but it's up to you to decide how annoying. Again, all of the info is free. If you do decide to search the database, there are numerous names and dates that are mis-spelled, I know for a fact, from finding many of my own family members. There are also lots children that were apparently not named when the birth certificate was filed, and the name is listed as the father's name with a number 1 or 2. You may later find another certificate (with another file number) where the child was actually named. I have also found several others that had duplicate certificates, possibly to correct mis-spelled names, or they may not have realized the original had been filed. If you do find someone that you want to order a birth certificate on, the volume and certificate number listed should be included in your request, as that is how they are filed. I hope this has answered some of the questions about Vital Search. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Sherri Hall ldrbelties@earthlink.net Boyle County, KY website http://www.rootsweb.com/~kyboyle