I know this thread has been running a while, and I may have missed someone else's suggestion, but it may be worth contacting the DAR or SAR, as both outfits are pretty well heeled, and take an active role in records preservation. If you've never made it to the DAR's Constitution Hall Library, you've missed a treat. DAR transcribed a good many cemeteries nationwide back in the 20s and 30s, and all of their original documents, typed and bound on onionskin paper, are included in their holdings, not to mention all of the various descendancy papers filed by members registering their lineages, as well as an outstanding collection of bound material pertaining to most counties of all 50 states. In any event, funding can be gotten for two levels of preservation, and I know that an awful lot of people had Revolutionary War vets and their families come to eastern OH. Certainly microfilming, which many outfits other than the LDS folks can do. I know that in the past couple of years, an independent outfit in Bedford Co., PA (my paternal line centers here), did this very thing, under the auspices of Bedford's Pioneer Historical Society. The cost of the enterprise is slowly being recouped by offering paid lookups for folks who check out the online databases at the Pioneer Society's webpage. The material filmed, rescued from the Bedford Courthouse "dungeon", as well from the Prothonotary's office in the courthouse, is being protected from further deterioration as well as outright theft, which plagued this material's history. It might be worth contacting Kay Leach at the Pioneer Society just to get the skinny on what the Society had to do to get things rolling and accomplished. Beyond the filming, though, the longer-term project will include the rebinding and lamination of the pages of those volumes considered salvageable. This is certainly the more expensive of the tasks. This may be beyond the abilities of Belmont Co. to accomplish in the short run. I'll try to get a hold of Kay in Bedford Co., and see if she can put into digestible form just how they went about doing what they did. There's certainly an abiding interest to be shared, since a number of Bedford Countians were part of the big migration into Ohio during the early 1800s. My own tie to Belmont Co. stems from a wagon trip from MD's Eastern Shore in the 1820s, when Reuben Farrell and his uncle Zelek Farrell came from Queen Anne's Co. Reuben ended up in Morristown, where he and his wife Nancy Grimes Farrell (married in 1841) briefly operated the Black Horse Tavern, property they purchased from Isaac Kirk. While I'm pretty firm on the Farrell/Ferrell line, Nancy Grimes' lineage is still a mystery. I'll have to save that saga for a separate posting on the list; it's still a major brick wall for me! Reuben Farrell's grandson Roy Wilson Farrell was my maternal grandfather. David Fletcher Richmond, VA