Dot, in addition to replying to you direct I am also posting to the Scotland GenWeb list, as others may have similar questions. The site is the official Scottish Record office site. It has indexes for the Statutory Marriages 1855-1926, births & christenings 1855-1901, Deaths 1855-1951. Indexes for Old Parish Records, births & christenings 1553- 1854), OPR marriages (1553-1854). The 1881,1891 & 1901 Scottish Census. All these are searchable, some of the records you can see & down load images of the entries, those that you can't look at , you can order a copy online. Basicly go to the site have a look, it explains it all better than I can. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk I am on a budget myself, being a working solo dad with a teenager and a three year old, I have brought 2 lots of 30 credits (I still have 12 left) , cost me $18NZ this week & the same last week, thats 6 British pounds about $10US or $17AUS. I have got 1000's of indexed entries, a copy of a death record and three census pages, all a help in discovering my family. One hint I offer with my vast experence :-) with the site. To view search results costs per pages of results. You get upto 25 entries per page, so to view part of the index containing 1 entry costs you the same as viewing list of 25 entries, so I try & maximise my search results by playing arround with search parameters. You get to see how many hits your search got & how many pages it is, so I do a bit of playing arround, with date range, for try all Scotland, rather than a specfic parish/district. Say you are looking for George BINNIE, born about 1870, in Lauder. You put his name , a year range 1868 to 1872, but in Lauder. You get 3 hits. So before you look and pay your 1 credit for looking, you say well lets broaden that search. So you try the same search but don't but in a first name,(that way you may get some siblings or cousins of George) you get 14 hits, OK the try SOUNDEX on the surname & you 64 hits (3 pages), too many for you & many of them won't be BINNIE's or similar. (of course there are times when you would use Soundex or wildcards in the name) So forget SOUNDEX, just broaden the year range a bit till you get 24 or 25 entries, that way you'll get some info on a few more rellies of George, for no additional cost. Things is just a hyperthetical example but I hope it gives the picture. good hunting John Dods New Zealand --- Dot Gudger <ddg5@mindspring.com> wrote: > Can you tell me what dates this site covers? Hope > this is not a ridiculous question; did not see > original email. Thanks, Dot > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com