IF THIS PETITION REQUEST WAS PREVIOUSLY POSTED ON THE PAINE/PAYNE LISTS, MY APOLOGIES FOR DOING SO AGAIN. HOWEVER, IF IT WAS, I MISSED IT AT THE TIME. I WAS GLAD TO HAVE IT BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION AGAIN. YOU CAN SIGN IT ON-LINE. ALL SIGNATURES MUST BE IN BY EARLY FEBRUARY. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION. BOB GERRITY If you are interested in Irish ancestry then you will be interested in the Council of Irish Genealogical Organization's (CIGO) petition. Researchers of ancestry in Ireland have long been frustrated by the service at Dublin's General Register Office (GRO) and the out-dated mode of access to its records of birth, death and marriage which date from 1845. CIGO is compiling a petition to lay before the Minister of Health, the Irish government department under which the GRO comes, to request that microfilm copies of the registers and indexes to 1900 should be made available free of charge at the National Library of Ireland. The Council of Irish Genealogical Organizations is a voluntary non-profit organization concerned with all issues affecting the practice of genealogy on the island of Ireland. It was founded a number of years as a result of the Irish government's proposal to decentralize the General Register Office to Roscommon town. Since then it has been active in all areas of genealogy, bringing problems and suggestions to the attention of the various Irish archive offices and bodies. In addition it provides a forum for discussion and interchange of ideas among its various constituent members as well as addressing concerns generated at government level in both administrative areas of Ireland. Most of Ireland'sprincipal genealogical bodies are members of CIGO. Associate membership is open to overseas societies and applications from them are welcomed. The current chairman is Steven C. ffeary-Smyrl the delegate of the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland. (The office of chairman is rotated among all the Irish members). If CIGO can achieve the petition's aim it can then put pressure upon the Department to release the pre-1900 records on microfilm to other national and international libraries and archives. We need your help. Please visit CIGO's website (address below) and sign the petition. >>http://indigo.ie/~gorry/CIGO.html ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com