I did receive one image yesterday, so maybe there are a few more out there. Meanwhile, judging by one response, perhaps I was too specific, and confused people in the process. I want to make dead-sure we're all on the same page here. I don't have immediate access to the bond images themselves, as the bonds themselves are located two hours away in Raleigh. I live an hour away from Guilford, and I also work. I'd love to spend a day every week in the NC Archives -- nothing would make me happier -- but that's not possible. So, in the meantime, while we accumulate more bond images, I will list the personal data from the bond, according to the various abstracts I have on hand. That will allow us to build a list of online data, while still working to acquire images for as many of these bonds as possible. But abstracts can be wrong. One of the reasons to acquire the images is to be aware of the variations, such as the clerk's spelling of a surname one way, and the groom's spelling of it another way. Or whether the groom signed with an "X." That tells you something important about the groom. It's always better to view the actual bond (or any other document) or an image of it. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of marriage bonds for Guilford County. Some people may have assumed I was going to obtain and post all these images myself. I really do wish I could do that for all of you. But I won't live long enough to do that, although I do come from a long-lived Scots-Irish family, whose members stay active and live at home -- and often die there -- into their 90's and 100's. Besides, I do have my own family research to do, in my few leisure hours. And we all have brick walls to work on. If I don't have a personal family interest in getting a particular bond image myself the next time I go to Raleigh, the person requesting a look-up -- if that person wants to do so -- can pursue the matter in one of a few different ways. Rick Saunders has offered to obtain digital images at a reduced cost if someone makes a contribution to GCGS. That's due in large part to his generosity, and also to the fact that I don't want this project to hurt their revenues. Rick lives and works in Salt Lake City, and can obtain digital images very easily and inexpensively from the microfilm at the Family History Center. Or you can travel to Raleigh yourself, and view your ancestor's bond in person, and obtain a digital image or photocopy. I've done that, and a color digital image shows all the wonderful color tones of the paper and the ink. Or you can find a researcher based in Raleigh and ask them to obtain the desired image for you, whether color digital image or photocopy. Whatever you do, I would appreciate your submitting the image, or a scan of it, to go along with the basic information we have on the website. See the earlier e-mail for details on file size, etc. All I'm trying to do here is find a way to improve the availability of marriage bond information, and I also want to improve the quality of the available data, by creating a way to post the actual images on the website. Images of documents signed by your ancestors are important in a number of different ways, including the fact that you can compare handwriting from one document to another to see if your John Smith on the marriage bond is the same John Smith who signed some other document. Never be satisfied with an abstract when the original document still exists. Questions, anyone? So, I will look up and post the data for one couple per person. I also urge you to go beyond that and obtain the image for a particular bond by whatever means you prefer, and then submit it to Guilford County NCGenWeb, in order to help your cousins out there. Merry Christmas! I'm off from work today, and I need to go start vacuuming. Katherine Dick Benbow County Coordinator, Guilford County NCGenWeb _http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncguilfo/index.html_ (http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncguilfo/) **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)