Dear Elizabeth; Thank you for the information. I know what it's like. I just got a call from about a 6th and 7th cousin--several ways--who is also a friend for some help just after I realized it had been 43 years of research, analysis and writing thus far and I STILL haven't finished tracing all my late mother's lines back to the point of emigration--much less earlier than that. I have fears of becoming another Lyman Draper leaving my nieces and nephews with an incredible mess of files, books, etc. and not nearly enough well organized. It didn't help that my computer crashed a few weeks ago, with all of what is organized and in annotated trees, etc. and I'm still trying to find a way to extract the disk from the hard drive--not the drive from the computer--the disk from the drive itself--carefully and safely, put it into another drive chassis by the same manufacturer and see if I can boot it up and extract the data and put it on the new machine--and new back-up. Another cousin and friend who is very tech savvy offered to help do this, but then got sent to Texas to solve one of his company's major network "oops" for several weeks. What a mess! My genealogy business files are all on that darned drive, also--and it was less than two years old when it crashed and bought at Fry's a major dealer out here! You know, if cars just catastrophically quit on freeways as often as computers "catastrophically crash" we'd all be still driving horse and buggies. Ah, well, back to other difficult problems: finding estate administration records and deeds of property for families without wills or with minimal wills, and parents for still "mystery" people in other lines in other areas. Cecilia -----Original Message----- From: ncorange-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:ncorange-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Harris Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 3:26 PM To: ncorange@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [NCORANGE] Andrew Collins >If anyone is familiar with finding records at the archives and what >they charge for search and copies or if I have to employ a non-archives >researcher to first find the records then make copies on account of >budget cuts in deficit tax years, please let me know. Yes, I'm sure I >can send a query to the archives itself, but practical experience from >someone else is always useful. The price schedule and ordering information are on the archives web site at http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/archives/mail.htm I've had no experience with mail orders, and don't know how long it takes, but I've found the staff on site to be very helpful. The loose estates records are filed by county, and within a county, by surname. They are easy and quick to search. Searching deeds is considerably more time-consuming, in my experience. I regret that I can't offer to look up the records for you. I rarely have a chance to visit the archives myself these days, and I have a very long list of my own work to do. -- Elizabeth Harris ncgen@mindspring.com Personal genealogy webpage: http://www.duke.edu/web/chlamy Winston-Salem NC area genealogy: http://www.fmoran.com/ HOLDER DNA project: http://www.mindspring.com/~holderdna/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NCORANGE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.9/1291 - Release Date: 2/21/2008 11:05 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.9/1291 - Release Date: 2/21/2008 11:05 AM