I come back to your comments you had about familienschein an fees. I have recently asked at about 10 differents places mainly in the canton of AR and SG to send me a familienschein. Up to now I got 7 responses. And nobody had asked me to get a permission from the canton. 1. for 1 familienschein I paid FS 92.- As they told me they have applied the new tarif. I suppose as Wolf told is his mail they included the permission fees. 2. for another familienschein I paid FS 55.-. A bid expensive but after my experience correct. 3. A photocopy of a burgerrodel I got free of charge. 4. 1 reply per e-mail from the Staatsarchiv to whom the letter was forwarded, telling me they find anything, but giving further clues where I should search. 5. From two places I got the reply per e-mail that they do not have any records for the period I asked. 6. one town asked me to explain them my direct relationship to my ancestor. As you can see not every town/commun is dealing with your request the same manner. You can have luck and pay nothing or you can pay a fee fairly expensive. Concerning the permission a have the feeling, that the regulations are not applied everywhere. Or maybe there is another reason for that. Then all my ancestors I was looking for are born 150 to 200 years ago. So I think probably after a certain period (100 or 120 years) your do not need any permission anymore. Max Kunzle