I received this through another list and I thought everyone would find it interesting. This article was in the Houston Chronicle this morning. <Online vital records have a bumpy history <By MIC BARNETTE <The year 2000 was great for Texas genealogists. <In June 2000 the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics placed several statewide vital records indexes on its Web site. Researchers were able to go to the TBVS Web <site and access the records at their leisure. The data, however, was awkwardly arranged in separate files that corresponded to the year of the event. Each year <had to be searched individually. <Rootsweb.com, a genealogical research Web site, purchased a set of the Texas vital records data and prepared it for use on its Web site. An enterprising <programmer at Rootsweb combined the single-year files and created a search engine that allows users to search all the data files in a fraction of a second. <Unfortunately, the gains of 2000 were lost when questions of privacy were raised in November 2001 in a California newspaper article. The California governor <threatened to sue Rootsweb for having the state's vital records indexes online. Within a week Texas Bureau of Vital Records officials followed California's lead <and demanded that Rootsweb unplug the online Texas databases. Rootsweb complied. <The Texas databases that were online included statewide indexes to marriages 1966-1995, divorces 1968-1997, deaths 1963-1998, general indexes to births <1926-1949 and the summary indexes to births 1950-1995. General indexes, incidentally, list names of parents, while summary indexes do not. <In Texas, records of marriages and divorces have been maintained on a county level since the days of the Republic of Texas in the 1830s. Counties began <reporting this information to the state in 1966 and 1968, respectively. Births and deaths were kept on a statewide basis in 1903. <Births and deaths 1903-1997 are available on microfilm and microfiche at courthouses across the state. <Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed SB 861, which closes birth records for 75 years. This law goes into effect Sept. 1. Currently, birth records are <open after 50 years. Death records were not a part of SB 861 and remain available to researchers. Indexes for both births and deaths remain open to researchers. <There is some good news for those who would like to research Texas vital records indexes without going to a courthouse. Houston genealogist Hugh Adams has <taken the vital records indexes formerly online at the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics Web site and formatted them on 11 CD-ROMs. Each letter of the alphabet <on each CD includes data from births 1926-1995, marriages 1996-2000, divorces 1968-2000 and deaths 1964-1998. A demonstration Web site may be viewed <at www.tvrview.com/. <The 11 CDs contain surname data arranged alphabetically. Disk 1 covers surnames beginning with A, D and E; disk 2, B; disk 3, C; disk 4, F and G; disk 5, H <and I; disk 6, J-L; disk 7, M; disk 8, N-Q; disk 9, R and T; disk 10, S and X; and disk 11, U-Z. <The CDs are available from TVRView-H.C. Adams, 12180 Greenspoint Drive, PMB No. 196, Houston, TX 77060-2002. The 11-CD set is $129; individual <disks are $15.50. Shipping for the set is $4.95; $2.50 for individual CDs. I am not pushing anyone buying the above, nor do I know these people or anything about these disks. Please do not contact me for more info.....I don't know any more than you do. Elaine Martin Co-CC TXGenWeb Counties: http://txgenes.com/TxGregg/ http://txgenes.com/TxUpshur/ http://txgenes.com/TxMarion/ Webmaster: http://txgenes.com/TxPostcards/ **Don't argue with an idiot.....the people watching may not be able to tell the difference.**