I had this same experience. A distant cousin took a marriage "I give permission for my son to marry" slip written by our great great grandfather from an Alabama courthouse.?? These?rural courthouses?still don't pay much attention to what people are doing with the records they browse. ??? -----Original Message----- From: Johnlyon0@cs.com To: lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com Sent: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:32 am Subject: [LDR] Archival Security Then there are the stupid. I once went into an Alabama courthouse to seek an estate record; it was gone, its folder empty. Some years later I was directed to a party in South Carolina who was supposedly knowledgable. He admitted happily that he had the very record I needed; he had been to the courthouse, found the record, and just took it. After all, it was his grampa! He literally could not grasp that he'd stolen anything. He found it and it was his, dagnabit. John ***************************************