Most of you on the list are way ahead of me when it comes to research in Milwaukee County, but I thought I'd share some of my beginner's experiences. Eventually I'll put them up on my (currently empty) freepages web site. With the unseasonably warm Milwaukee weather the past two days (40's), I decided to take a walk to the Milwaukee County Courthouse during my lunch hour today and obtain some source documents for my genealogy research. I jotted down notes on documents I wanted to buy and here's how it all went: First, yesterday I searched on the Internet for 'Milwaukee County Register of Deeds' and came up with a web site http://www.milwaukeecounty.org . This gave me the general information on address, hours of operation, and verified the fact that they held Birth, Marriage, and Death records for events that happened in the county of Milwaukee. I made a note of seven records that I wanted to purchase: 2 birth, 1 marriage, and 4 death. Today, I headed out. I walked straight up Kilbourn Avenue to the County Courthouse and discovered that all entrances on the east side of the building were locked due to new security measures. A man saw me trying to enter and pointed me in the right direction. I entered on the south side of the courthouse and a man in uniform directed me down the stairs. I took everything out of my coat pockets and shoved it all in my purse-coins, keys, pager, papers, etc. I put my purse on the scanner and walked through the metal detector and still managed to set it off. A police woman with a hand-held scanner asked me to open my coat, and she waved the scanner all around me. Holy cow are those things set sensitive-she found a single quarter in the inside pocket of my coat! (Hey, it was a shiny Kentucky quarter that I didn't want to accidentally spend!) Finally, she waved me through and I picked up my purse. There was a Tyme machine (ATM) just past the security station, but I walked to the directory in the middle of the hallway. I verified that the Register of Deeds was still in room 103, and decided to head back to the ATM. Good thing I did, too-the Register of Deeds office is cash-only for in-person requests. I headed up the stairs and found room 103. There was a line, but only 4-5 people were waiting. I found the applications on the back wall and headed to a counter to fill them out. I filled out as much information as I knew (should have brought my binder, I didn't think to jot down social security numbers or date of birth for the death certificates). I then got in line with my ID ready. After just a few minutes, I was called. The lady who was behind the counter looked at all my applications and told me that she would have to work on them when she wasn't assigned to the counter and mail them out to me. I told her that would be fine and she gave me my total-$80 for two uncertified copies of every certificate. I asked her if she knew when I could expect to receive the copies, and she said she'd try to work on them this afternoon and get them in the mail tomorrow. Not bad! All in all, the entire trip was pretty painless. I didn't get what I wanted immediately, but it should arrive faster than sending off to Madison for them. On the way back to work, I made sure to stop at Eagan's for their killer pasta salad, just to make sure I had enough calories to offset all that extra exercise for the day! Cheryl __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/