NJ??? Into the 21st? Please................not in my life time!! Giggle Giggle! ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 9:19 AM Subject: Re: [NJ] NJ Vital records > Wonder if New Jersey is going to get into the 21st Century. > Sry, > just a joke. > >>From the Chicago Tribune > > Old county records being put online > > By Jason Meisner | Tribune staff reporter 9:56 PM CDT, September 6, 2007 > Professional genealogists and people interested in researching their > family > tree > will soon be able to access key records from home instead of ordering by > mail > > or traipsing down to a musty office in the Loop, Cook County Clerk David > Orr > said Thursday. > > If all goes as planned, newly digitized versions of county records such as > birth and death certificates and marriage licenses will be available > beginning > in January on one searchable Web site that will revolutionize how such > research > is done, Orr said. > > "It's going to be a big boon for us and for the genealogy folks who have > to > go through us to get the records," Orr said. "It will allow them to go > online > > to see if the records exist, to find relatives and purchase copies > online." > > > > > The Web site is part of a massive yearlong effort to digitize the county's > 24 > > million vital records, which date to 1871, when record-keeping began after > the Chicago Fire wiped out previous stockpiles, clerk's office spokeswoman > Kelley Quinn said. > > The records have stacked up for decades in the basement area of the > county's > administration building at Clark and Randolph Streets, where conditions > have > not been ideal. > > "We've had rats, floods, fires, bugs, you name it," Orr said. > > Over the years, the county has made special efforts to save some records, > including employing a special "freeze-drying" process to restore documents > that > had water damage, he said. > > Scanning and indexing each record was completed in June, and the county is > uploading about 1 million files per week into a computer server, a process > that > is expected to be complete by the end of the year, Quinn said. > > "Everything will be updated and fully digitized at that point," Quinn > said. > Once the digitizing process is complete, Cook County will be one of the > first > > counties in the U.S. to have all such materials stored electronically, she > said. > > The genealogy Web site will offer a tutorial for people interested in > researching family trees and allow users to search for relatives by name. > Once the > proper person is found, users can pay a fee to download records and print > them > at home. > > Documents available online will be birth certificates that are at least 75 > years old, marriage certificates more than 50 years old, and death > certificates > more than 20 years old, Quinn said. > > She said that certified copies, which are required to obtain official > documents such as a driver's license, will not be available online. > > No Social Security numbers will be available on the online documents, she > said. > > > > > ************************************** > > > > > > > > > ************************************** > See what's new at http://www.aol.com > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message