Hi, Maybe someone can shed some light on my question, on the laws of searching records in Mass. I have been doing research for neary four years on my family and ancestors. I have been to many Town clerks offices, and they have been very friendly and helpful, however, the other day I went to a small town in Ma. to look up a birth in 1905, and the clerk told me she had to do the look up because it wasn't 100yrs old. This is the second time this has happened. How come some clerks will give you the whole book or let you go in the indexes to check yourself and others won't.? They don't realize that there are many misspellings and if we could look ourselfs we might identify that one of those misspelled persons is the one we are looking for. I almost missed out on one the other day because of this. I was searching for an Oliver.......... She said for that date she only had an Olavate, and the date was two days different than I gave her. I then asked her to just see that entry, and I deciphered that the name was misspelled and I read it to be Olavah. It was indeed the man I was looking for. Some of these clerks don't realize what entails in searching. Any input on this? SHIRLEY