Hi Dee and NOVA, When I was at the FHC yesterday, the director showed me the new stuff they are doing at _www.familysearch.org_ (http://www.familysearch.org/) . The LDS is transcribing and posting tons of records. If you go to _www.labs.familysearch.org_ (http://www.labs.familysearch.org/) , the screen is divided into two parts. On the left are all the records that have already been transcribed, and on the right are all the ones where the images have been posted and that are in progress of being transcribed. You should see the stuff they are working on! The director has been a beta tester for them. And the records are cross-referenced. She told me she was looking up a relative's death certificate. But the site also gave her the marriage record of the relative's daughter, since his name was on it. Several other references, too related to his name appearing in other family member's records. One of the things they have on the left of the screen (transcribed) is the Soc Security Death Index. The one Ancestry has (and maybe the Soc Security website, too) is not complete. The earlier records, from the early 1980s and before, are not there. Sometimes too if someone did not live to collect his SS benefits, he was not included in the list. So I don't know if the LDS has the complete index or not. The director told me that Ancestry regards the LDS efforts as competition, since the LDS is offering everything for free. She told me there are I think 210,000 volunteers that are working on transcribing records for the FHL right now. She said that last year Ancestry pulled themselves out of offering their free subscriptions to the FHC since they were mad about the free transcription project, but that now the subscriptions have been restored. Some of the people working for Ancestry bailed or were laid off and went to the FHL. She said and I agree that Ancestry is geared to their stockholders now and not to genealogy. It's all about money. She was pretty fed up with the situation, too. I told her that the State Managers were pulling their websites out of Rootsweb. Colleen In a message dated 3/23/2008 9:58:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time, darnellbrunner@hotmail.com writes: Hey Nova, Just a little note to let you know that the Gen Web Archive Pages for Louisiana have moved to http://www.usgwarchives.org/la/lafiles.htm Orleans Parish is now at http://www.usgwarchives.org/la/orleans.htm Jefferson Parish is now at http://www.usgwarchives.org/la/jefferso.htm As of right now the search engines only will work through rootsweb.ancestry.com until the files are completely removed from there. New search engines are in the making and will arrive as soon possible(hopefully). As time permits with the whole United States pages are moving and the massive amount of work that takes, depends on how long it will take for new search engines. As always, Like I said from day one, I promise to keep the files free free and free for always and forever. Please bookmark the new pages, as the other ones will be leaving soon. Darnell Marie Brunner Beck {Dee} **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001)