Dawn, My grandfather Leslie Ryan was born in Merrill in 1898. His mother told him that there was a fire and the records had been all destroyed. Then I learned from other listers that there was no fire. When Ancestry.com posted the Wisconsin birth records I did a search using no first names (just Ryan, the birt year and linc for the county) and found that out of the seven children only two births were registered. Some had died within hours or days of birth but others lived months and years without ever being registered. The two I did find were registered as Male Ryan and Female Ryan so if the search was for a specific first name and none was recorded it could have been missed. Name: Walter O Heinrichs Birth Date: 17 Sep 1900 County: Lincoln Reel: 0112 Record: 001470 Wisconsin Vital Records Indexes, Pre-1907 Birth Index, Marriages, and Death Indes. If you write to vital records with the reel and record #s you should be able to get it. Margaret Note-this was a one shot deal to test my theory. For intellectual property rights reasons I cannot do look-up from a for fee site. >Posted on: Lincoln Co. Wi Query Forum >Reply Here: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Wi/Lincoln/208 > >Surname: Heinrichs, Broker >-------------------------