Oh, Jim, I disagree. While $1.00 may be too little, $17.00 is ridiculous. And $1.00 may be fine if you appear in person and no mailing is involved. Things are automated. I think a professional clerk could do many of these uncertified copies in an hour. And I am not sure that they are always busy, though I really don't know about that. Also, many doing genealogy research are older and on fixed incomes. And multiple $17.00 charges surely can add up to a lot in a hurry. I can get quite a lot for $17.00, and I don't mean McDonalds. Neither do I hate France. I've been there several times and been treated well. I don't always like what the French gov't is doing, but then I very often disagree with my own American government's actions. Kristi Jim Boyce <[email protected]> wrote: I'm going to sound like the Scrooge-in-the-Box, but I really don't think $17.00 is too much to pay, even for an uncertified copy of a vital record. Jim Boyce resident in the country other Americans love to hate the most --- France --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

I recently did research on site in three Ohio counties and I have done mail research recently in several other states and Germany. When I did research on site, I was able to look things up and make copies for 5 cents to 25 cents a page. Of course I had travel costs and my time! When I had other states and counties do lookups, I paid from $5 to $10 for the certificate, but most often they did not find the record and I still paid. I have found that I or a hired researcher did a more thorough job, trying variant spellings, maiden name and married name, neighboring county, etc. When I paid someone to do lookups in Ohio and Nebraska it was someone affiliated with local genealogical or historical societies and it was roughly $5 a document, which often went to support the local group. In some cases I made a slightly larger donation to the local society and some cases they helped me in other ways, directing me to online resources or other local resources. I have some newly found cousins as a result. When I hired a researcher in Germany I pay the admission to the records keeping institution (usually $10) and then pay only for records found, transcribed and translated. I pay $14 per record. I have done this myself in the past in Germany and it cost me more per record, not even counting travel costs to Europe. My opinion is that $17 is fair if the people do research and not if they just do a five minute lookup on a computer or file drawer. Perhaps $5-10 would be fairer for that. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kristi Jalics" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 10:34 AM Subject: Re: [OHRICHLA] RE: Cost Increases for Ohio Records > Oh, Jim, I disagree. While $1.00 may be too little, $17.00 is ridiculous. And $1.00 may be fine if you appear in person and no mailing is involved. Things are automated. I think a professional clerk could do many of these uncertified copies in an hour. And I am not sure that they are always busy, though I really don't know about that. Also, many doing genealogy research are older and on fixed incomes. And multiple $17.00 charges surely can add up to a lot in a hurry. I can get quite a lot for $17.00, and I don't mean McDonalds. > > Neither do I hate France. I've been there several times and been treated well. I don't always like what the French gov't is doing, but then I very often disagree with my own American government's actions. > > Kristi > > Jim Boyce <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm going to sound like the Scrooge-in-the-Box, but I really don't think $17.00 is too much to pay, even for an uncertified copy of a vital record. Jim Boyce > resident in the country other Americans love to hate the most --- > France > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! > > > ==== OHRICHLA Mailing List ==== > 1902 RICHLAND CO. DIRECTORY ... http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohrichla/1902.htm > 1920 MANSFIELD DIRECTORY - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohrichla/1920Directory/1920.htm >