>From Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter: How to Trace Your Family Tree without Spending the Family Fortune. Go to --> http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/04/how-to-trace-your-fam ily-tree-without-spending-the-family-fortune.html to read the complete article. Esther Rantzen has written an article that will be of interest to anyone researching ancestors in England or Wales. She describes the services of the General Register Office that is now available online on Directgov. Some commercial companies charge as much as GBP30.00 for a birth certificate but each certificate costs from just GBP7.00 if you order online via Directgov. Public information about registering births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales has moved from the GRO (General Register Office) website and is now available on the government's supersite, Directgov, from 7 April 2009. One statistic in this article that amazed me was "GRO online ordering service currently receives up to 7,000 applications a day." No wonder they are moving their services to the web. Can you imagine the manpower required to handle 7,000 applications per day? You can read more on the TMCnet web site at --> http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/04/07/4113281.htm. Gene Pennington MCGS Webmaster, CIG & TMG User Group http://www.maringensoc.org MCGS Blog: http://maringensoc.blogspot.com/