My goodness all this back and forth about $15.00 for a year¹s worth of research- imagine if the historical society wasn¹t there at all. Some much more would be lost. I¹m on the mailing list as I do a family research project so I¹ve been reading this flurry of email. I live in NYC and the information and general help from this organization and people who volunteer has been very generous. No one has yet asked for a fee to do basic research and I have been asking for real digging. There is also a wonderfully rich web site which costs money and skill to maintain yet no one has asked that I pay for that service. Small not for profit organizations usually exist in addition to our taxes. The fact that information is cared for and archived for future generations is an extremely generous motive. It requires labor and expertise to house and archive historical information. I would like my daughter to go there in twenty years and be able to find out the stories and facts about her great great grandparents as I have done. It is invaluable. Rae Grant Rae Grant raegrant@mindspring.com