Technically, yes, the microfilms at the Middlesex office of Reference and Research do cover all the towns in Vermont. Town clerks copied town records onto birth, death, and marriage cards and sent the cards in. The cards were then grouped by years (early records to 1870, 1871-1907, 1908-1942, 1942-1954, 1955-1979), alphabetized by surname within those year groupings, then alphabetized by first name within the surname groupings. They are not grouped by town. As Joann stated, not all early vital records were recorded by towns. If a birth, death, or marriage was not recorded in the town, it will not be on the microfilm. Also, as previously stated, the cards are copies of town records, so if the original handwritten record was difficult to read, the copied cards may not be totally accurate. Name spellings vary greatly (Wheeler, Wheler, Whelen, Whalen, etc), depending on what the original record looked like. One card for a death record I found simply said "Old Mrs Wheeler" and gave the date of her death and the name of the town. So, to answer your question...if you know the surname, and can determine which year range you wish to search, you can scroll through the film and view all the cards for that surname for that time frame. You would be able to look at the film containing the Potter name for the early years (up to 1870), and see what is on the film. If it is a common name, there might be a lot of cards to view. Hope this helps. Emily

Hello Emily , Thank You for this Answer !!, It tells me WHAT i wanted to know ! I can now explore those records , Which btw : Is the FIRST i have heard of them I have been monitering the Vermont list for 15 years , This is first time the index cards were mentioned !! ,, Phil ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich & Emily Johnson" <reeljohnson@gmavt.net> To: <vermont@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 7:40 PM Subject: Re: [VERMONT] Vermont Vital Records > Technically, yes, the microfilms at the Middlesex office of Reference and > Research do cover all the towns in Vermont. Town clerks copied town > records > onto birth, death, and marriage cards and sent the cards in. The cards > were > then grouped by years (early records to 1870, 1871-1907, 1908-1942, > 1942-1954, 1955-1979), alphabetized by surname within those year > groupings, > then alphabetized by first name within the surname groupings. They are not > grouped by town. > > As Joann stated, not all early vital records were recorded by towns. If a > birth, death, or marriage was not recorded in the town, it will not be on > the microfilm. Also, as previously stated, the cards are copies of town > records, so if the original handwritten record was difficult to read, the > copied cards may not be totally accurate. Name spellings vary greatly > (Wheeler, Wheler, Whelen, Whalen, etc), depending on what the original > record looked like. One card for a death record I found simply said "Old > Mrs > Wheeler" and gave the date of her death and the name of the town. > > So, to answer your question...if you know the surname, and can determine > which year range you wish to search, you can scroll through the film and > view all the cards for that surname for that time frame. You would be able > to look at the film containing the Potter name for the early years (up to > 1870), and see what is on the film. If it is a common name, there might be > a > lot of cards to view. > > Hope this helps. > > Emily > > > > > ************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://www.rootsweb.com/~vermont/VermontWelcome.html > Visit the Gateway to Vermont Web Site: http://www.rootsweb.com/~vermont/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > VERMONT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message