Mea culpa! I tend to either get so focused on one thing or so scattered trying to get several things done at once, that I think everyone else knows exactly what I'm talking about without too much explanation. Yes, the obits are great - and birth and wedding announcements, whatever appears in an old newspaper with names and/or dates - they are the meat of genealogy. But the general news items Tim is talking about are important too. They are hand in hand with the interactive map and the little blurb about the Lousiana Purchase. If we don't know about the geography and history of the area where our ancestors lived, do we really know much about how they lived? It's like the pure gold in the "grandma and grandpa stories" we put on "Memory Lane." It makes all those names on a chart human. It's the "potatoes" of genealogy. To me, they are important, and I'd like to have them on the archives and to be able to read them. Karen Mabry Rice, USGenWeb Archives Coordinator Union Parish, Lousiana http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/la/union.htm