Thanks for the messages, but I feel foolish. My message to Karen was confusing and preliminary. I think we all believe that obituaries are useful, and I hope to continue transcribing these as time allows. But I was not referring to the obituaries, but rather some local notices from early Union Parish newspapers. I am nearly finished with the first batch of local abstracts from the Farmerville "Home Advocate" that I am preparing for Karen to place on the archives, if she wishes. This is the earliest Union Parish newspaper for which there is a known contiguous run of issues, dated Feb 1885 through Feb 1886. I have always found these old papers fascinating, as they give little "snippets" of what life was like in Union Parish in the 1880s, besides an occasional obituary, marriage notice, birth notice, local news and gossip, etc. However, many of the local items are of a historical nature rather than genealogical nature, such as the recent weather, elections, prices of items, local events in Farmerville and vicinty, but not mentioning a specific person. While I find these historical items relating directly to Farmerville and Union Parish extremely interesting myself, I am uncertain if others feel the same. If so, I will continue abstracting these early papers. I hope to have these abstracts to Karen by early next week. Tim Hudson