Good afternoon, everyone. :-) For those of you who don't know me, I'm the county coordinator for Essex and Middlesex counties. Over the past several years, with the aid of many people, I've been working on getting the "Tan Book" series of vital records transcribed and online. I have always said that I would consider the job done if I got them done or I could get one of the pay sites to make theirs firee. The latter is soon to come to pass. I had a talk with the New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS). We have come to preliminary agreement. NEHGS is going to convert their database of the early vital records of Massachusetts from 1600-1849 to the format that I have been putting online. (For those unfamiliar with these, visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex/VitalRecords.) These will be made entirely free to everyone. These will be indexed by both exact name and soundex. Indexing should still include year, or range of years. Hopefully, the indexing will go even further over time. Also, images of the book pages will be available. This is all still in the early planning stages. For instance, who is going to do the actual conversions - my transcribers and me or NEHGS? They have about 164 towns already done. When those are converted, it will still be necessary to transcribe the remainder, about 50 or so towns. The first steps are being made. NEHGS has begun scanning. They have already sent me all 3 volumes of the Gloucester vital records and they are online. This is in addition to what I already had up. It will depend on their volunteers and their other needs as to how fast they can scan the rest and send them to me. I think that this is going to be one of the biggest boons to those with New England roots in a very long time. Thank you. John Slaughter In loving memory of our son, Brennan. 11/10/88-5/31/01. http://john-slaughter.rootsweb.com/Brennan.html MA-Bay-Colony list moderator USGenWeb County Coordinator Essex County, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex Middlesex County, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~mamiddle USGenWeb Town Coordinator Ipswich, Essex, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~macipswi _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/