Thanks for all that great information, Charles! It's especially good to know that I didn't just imagine that the newspaper goes back as far as the 1880s. :-) I'll give them a call this next week to see what they have to offer on interlibrary loan, for those of us who can't get there for a while. By the way, I thought I would just take this opportunity to tell everyone that I'm planning a fairly comprehensive research visit in The Dalles area once we get past winter (I'm in Spokane, WA and don't travel much by car when the snow flies, at least not long distance travel). If you all want to decide over the winter what it is that is too hard or impossible to get without having someone IN the area, I'll be happy to fulfill some research requests for list members when I go there. I'll spend most of my time at the courthouse & library, but I'll also be going as far south as Maupin to take cemetery photos & such, so hopefully I can help somebody out along the way, too. That reminds me: here is a site that you can use to see what can be found where. If you've never used this site, it's a little bit confusing at first. It is: http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/vital.html The site is the *state* site that lists what records they *do* have at the state archives. Sometimes they list what you can find at the county level itself, and sometimes they don't. My experience has been that most of the old records do exist if you're willing to dig through musty courthouse files to get them, and willing to spend a considerable amount of time exploring all the indexes & such. Eventually, you can probably find what you're looking for, so don't be discouraged if it isn't listed on the State's page as something they know is at the county level. There are old birth registers, even copies of the birth records themselves, that can be found at the county courthouse but were not filed with the state because it was before the state took over that particular job. Same for marriages & everything else. They do exist. The ones that are listed as being in the state archives can be copied by them & sent to you by mail, with a bill enclosed. There's a link from the site that will take you to a search area to see if your ancestor has records listed. They do a good job of digging the records out for you, but you need to be aware that if you don't specify what your limit is on cost, they might find more than you bargained for & send it to you with the bill. Estate records & many others can go on for dozens of pages, and while the archives are good, they aren't cheap... Cheri thelittlewonder@earthlink.net | 'Genies' are here---> http://www.historysavers.com/