All this talk about soliciting funds to further the efforts brings me to a rather relevant concern... About a month ago I was told by a reporter that one of my county sites looked like any other and "nothing special"--which he determined by comparing mine to 2 others (this was his total exposure to such sites and genealogy in general). I was thoroughly infuriated with him because the site in question, while it had little or no transcriptions, pointed users to TONS of information resources--some on the net which had transcriptions; some on the net that provided information on topics or how to order records; and some that were locations, instructions, and contact information on getting to original source records. Most of these I had actually used myself or contacted the places to ensure I knew what was available and if there was a fee associated with it, etc.--all stated for the user. I also noted (for non-online resources) how to best get the research objective met by having contacted those places myself and asking how they'd prefer the researcher to deal with them. As someone who researches locally and not locally, I find that this information is infinitely useful. Finding the location of the primary resource is half the battle won. Knowing what libraries exist--especially those devoted to special interests (like race, religion, industry, etc.). I think it's unfair to say that only transcriptions provide value and that pointing to resources does not--especially since transcriptions are subject to human error and incompletions. I'd rather go to the source--as many researchers would--and therefore I value the resource location more than the transcription. Not to say I don't appreciate transcriptions, I just appreciate more the original/primary source location. So what's the purpose here? I thought it was to help users who were looking for their ancestor's in XYZ county? Showing them all of the information that exists there for their use? Transcriptions were a bonus--and something I leave to the archives (which I link out to in addition to providing the original source location of the records transcribed--especially since few resources are transcribed in total). Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts... --Heather Jones DeGeorge -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers