Hello, I have not tried Finley Hills yet, which I hear is one that is now charging... but I have had pretty good results with telephoning the local funeral homes. None (yet) has asked for a Fee up-front for looking up the name of my ancestor in their records. And they all have been very helpful in reading me all the info they could find. (I simply made careful notes while we chatted). Possibly the home(s) that are now charging are seeking to recoup their copying and mailing expenses for researchers requesting copies of documents??? I would think that an "upfront charge" for merely searching for a name would be too much, especially if it resulted in not finding the individual.... although, if the home receives a lot of "cold calls" (people not really knowing if their ancestor was handled by that home), then maybe I can see a small fee for looking up names.... But I have received emails from several funeral home directors in Vancouver/ Portland ... I told them that I hoped our page was not overly increasing their workload of "lookup" requests, and was told that while they did get a few more calls from people now finding them, in total, the lookups were not overwhelming.... So hopefully the majority of people calling the homes, know to FIRST attempt to get the Death Certificate (yes I know that sometimes this can be expensive) to see for sure who handled the burial, and the name of the cemetery.... if no home is listed, then contact the Cemetery first. The Cemetery (in most but not all cases) will generally have the name of the funeral home that handled the services. SO>> the moral of this is: Please try to ascertain who the funeral home really was before "cold-calling" the homes. This cuts down on the work-load of the homes, and maybe other homes wont start charging for just "lookups" :-) PS>> for anyone who has had to pay a charge to a Portland/Vancouver funeral home, would you please email me privately at GNINNAH@aol.com and let me know which home it was and the circumstances (other than Finley Hills, which I am currently aware of :-). I would like to be able to give a "heads-up" to other researchers!! Thanks! Pat <A HREF="http://www.cemeteryinfo.net/">Portland, OR & Vancouver, WA cemetery, funeral home, & yearbook indexes</A> >>In a message dated 5/6/02 3:04:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time, OREGON-D->>request@rootsweb.com writes: << > Some Funeral Homes now charge up to $25.00 per name. >> I wouldn't mind the charge for the information, if I knew beforehand that the >> people I am looking for were in their records..........so guess it is best to >> be forwarned. >> Thanks Julie Jacqueline >>