Every day this list gets the kind of request I show below and I suspect all European lists get the same. Request Example: Johann XXXXXXX was born in Switzerland. Came to United States. Was born in YYYY. I would like to find where exactly he came. etc. The researcher who has this type of query is left with the job of searching for a very small needle in a rather large haystack. The answer? If somehow all the names in OLD Swiss (and German and French etc) parishbooks and other archived OLD records were indexed, then the researcher could search similar names in that birth year (or approximate birth year) in Switzerland. The list of possibilities (size of haystack) could be reduced drastically, to between one and a few dozen parishes. Who will do the indexing? It would take a million volunteers, nicht wahr? But when it's done, it would be a tremendous tool. Again, who are those little elves who will spend a few hours each month to help get this project done? And who will organize it and pay for the infrastructure? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently announced that it would organize and pay for the infrastructure. It's members will be asked to volunteer their time to index the records (extracting names from birth records, for example). They've been doing this for years but the new program takes much of the operational tedium off from the shoulders of regional and stake extraction directors. But the Church has 2 million microfilms and each film with thousands of entries and each one must be extracted and indexed. The goal is to make all of this available on-line someday at no charge to the researcher. In the example above, you would find the possible Johann XXXXXX's in the on-line index and immediately call up a digital scan of those birth records (for example) to check out your idea. Similar to Ancestry.com only no cost to user. It will take decades. But to reduce the time to completion, the Church is inviting anyone to help, whether LDS member or not, in this effort. The hope is that a million volunteers from around the world will get involved from their PC's in their homes for two or more hours per month or more. Each of us gets major benefit from the access to old records that the Church has organized and paid for. We'll get much more in the future. Why not consider becoming part of the mass of volunteers? Why not give a little back for all that we take and will take in the future? Here is an article about the project: http://www.rader.org/LDSmicrofilmInternet.htm Here is the FamilySearch Indexing website: http://www.ldsindexing.org I suggest you go and snoop around the web site, read the FAQ's, get comfortable. Send in your name to be on the list when it's open for volunteers or just sit back and wait to hear how it's going so you won't be afraid to volunteer later. The Church says that an "official" announcement will be made in 2006. I say, go and look at the future now. Paul