In late July, the National Archives announced they were planning to cut back the hours of the Washington DC area facilities of the archives. This would eliminate all evening and Saturday hours and greatly harm the ability of the average genealogist to access the records. For full details, see http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2006/nr06-125.html While the Archivist of the United States was at the FGS conference he reported that they had received very little feedback from the country's genealogists asking for reconsideration. He was also presented with a request from the chair of the FGS Records Preservation Committee to consider some alternatives and a petition was started to allow genealogists to express their disagreement with the changes and to endorse alternatives that will allow the evening and Saturday hours to continue. You can see more details about that in Dick Eastman's weekly newsletter at: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/09/quick_please_jo.html The petition can be signed at: http://www.petitiononline.com/FGS2006 The deadline for receiving comments on the proposed changes by the archives is September 9, so there isn't much time to waste voicing your concerns. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.7/436 - Release Date: 9/1/2006