Hi, Sheila: The CDs that I think Marilyn has referenced is a complete set, 56 CDs, of the 1880 US CENSUS with Index. It is available from the LDS order site < http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp >. It is item number 50168000 and the cost is $49.00. It is located as the last item on the second page of the 'Census and Vital Records' page of the 'Software Products' section of 'Family History' page of LDS FAMILY SEARCH homepage under the tab HOME and then 'Order/Download Products'. (I'm working backwards here, so go at the above in the reverse order.) This item was reviewed or at least referenced by Dick Eastman in one of his recent Newsletters and I think that it lives up to his evaluation of it. It is not composed of actual scanned pictures of each page of the census but is a transcribed edition and every letter is typed just as you see on this message. There is lots of information on this census such as the National Archives Film and Page number. I know all the above sounds confusing, but if one has to ask where to buy or download something from the LDS site, then they are probably not familiar with that site. My detailed explanation is not necessarily directed at you but at anyone who might be unfamiliar with this site and the proceedures. If this will be your first time ordering products on the site, you will have to give some particulars about yourself: ie, name, address, etc., and you can use credit card for payment. It is a very easy proceedure. Hope this helps. - - - > SMartin583@aol.com wrote: > (cut) > Didn't Marilyn say she had the LDS's (Salt Lake City) INDEX to the 1880 > census for the US? Not the actual census ??? And by the way, how can we > order a copy of the CD for ourselves? I'm ready to try the "happy dance" !!! > > Ms. Sheila Lilia Martin with a little help from ((( >^..^< ))) <=Mr. Puddy -- ROB Robert G. Lewis EMAIL: rlew6897@rollinginternet.com Searching: LEWIS; ALFORD; FINCH; HOGG; WINBORNE; VOLIVA and others Member: The National Genealogical Society; The Alford American Family Association; The Tar River Connections Genealogical Society

I attended the NGS Conference in Portland in May, and was able to buy a copy of the FHL 1880 census there, so I have been using it since mid-May. So far, I have found about 20 individuals that I had been unable to locate in my many trips to the Archives. I have also done selected look ups for others that resulted in some good finds for them. I, as I assume most of you do, have to be very selective in the toys I purchase to go along with my genealogical research. If you had ancestors in the US in 1880, this set of CD's is an absolute must have item. It is the entire 1880 US census, with every name indexed. 35 of the CD's are the actual census organized by region. Within each region there is an index, so if you have a idea where the people you are looking for lived, you go to the region and look them up. The regional search is the most powerful of the two. You can use wild cards in the name and specify other information that will help you narrow the search. The other 20 CD's are the national index, all 50 million + names in one search list. I recently did a search for a woman looking for an uncommon name. The woman she was searching for was born in Georgia, and this was her brick wall. Well, I found a female child of that name in Georgia--it turned out the child was black and this woman was researching a white family. I looked up the name in the national census and found there were only 16 individuals in the US with that name, and only one of those was born in Georgia, and none of the rest looked like a good fit. Perhaps the reason this was a brick wall is that this lady of color had crossed over to white, and all the people who knew had taken the secret to their graves. The Family History Library used volunteers from all over the country to transcribe the 1880 census and they had 100 volunteers who double checked each name. My own great-grandfather is incorrectly coded in the Soundex used by the Archives. It took three years of looking and an accident of luck to find him. He is properly indexed in this census. I am not a Mormon and am not connected with the library. This is truly a tremendous contribution to genealogical research in this country. Marleen Van Horne