Hi, I have been reading posts regarding the Hampshire County Records, and about suggestions of writing letters to elected officials on the Hampshire Co Mailing List. Since this issue has been before addressed, I am sending this to both Mineral and Hampshire County lists. Any letters I wrote to any of these persons below and any opinions I suggested in these letters were my own, and I did not write them as a representative of the USGenWeb. I am writing this to you in the same respect. At the time all this information came out, I wrote to many people trying to get help and understanding. The responses I received are included in this email. I also wrote to EACH member of the Hampshire County Commission, as well as Delegate Mezzetesta. I received NO response from any of them. Dr. Frederick Armstrong is the director of the Archives and History Section of the WV Dept of Education and Arts. I respect his authority and have been patiently awaiting his answer. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything. I wrote my letters on Nov 8, 1999. My responses were: FROM ROBERT C BYRD Nov 17, 1999 Dr. Ms. McDonald, Thank you for your communication with regard to access to genealogy records in the Hampshire County Courthouse. Your concerns are understandable. Although I always want to be helpful, I regret to advise that is a state matter over which I have no legal authority as a US Senator. However, in an effort to be responsive to your concerns, prompt contact was made of the WV Dept of Education and Arts in your behalf. I am advised that you should contact the following state official for advice and assistance in this matter: Mr. Frederick Armstrong Director Archives and History Section WV Dept of Education and the Arts 1900 Kanawha Blvd, East Charleston WV 25305 304-558-0230 I am glad to have had the opportunity to be of assistance, and I appreciate your taking the time to write to me. I hope that this information will prove useful. Assuring you of my desire to be of assistance whenever possible, I am Sincerely yours, Robert C Byrd US States Senator Committee on Appropriations Washington DC 20510-6025 FROM SENATOR JAY ROCKEFELLER Nov 19, 1999 Dear Patti, Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me about the problem that you are having being able to search records at the Hampshire County Courthouse. Unfortunately, I do not know how I can be helpful to you in this matter. I can only suggest that you share your concerns with the Hampshire County Commission. Hopefully, they will be able to work something out with you. Again, Patti, thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Please let me know if I can be helpful in any other way, Sincerely, Jay John D Rockefeller United States Senate Washington DC 20510-4802 FROM CONGRESSMAN BOB WISE Dec 1, 1999 I appreciate your bringing to my attention the problem you are experiencing with gaining access to the Hampshire County documents. The Hampshire County Commission has been asked to look into this matter and furnish me with a full report. As soon as I have a response, I will be back in touch with you. Very truly yours, Bob Wise US Representatives Congress of the US Washington DC 20515 FROM DR ARMSTRONG Dec 7, 1999 Dear Ms McDonald Your letter regarding the Hampshire County records was directed to my attention for reply. I welcome the opportunity to address your concerns regarding the work being done on records recently re-located in the courthouse and access to them. The records as you say are old an in fragile condition, a condition partially accountable to some years of neglect and imporper storage. I have made two trips to the courthouse this fall to assist the staff in addressing some of its accumulated records storage and access problems. Their interest is in the right place but the limitations of staff time and resources creates a real challenge to address the needs of the records in a timely manner. During both visits I discussed the work being done on the re-located records with Mr Bill rice and County Clerk Sharon Link. Mr Rice is a volunteer, unpaid staff, working on the project to process the records found and attempt to arrange them so they can be indexed and stored more properly. Mr Rice has demonstrated the necessary skills for this work while working in the courthouse records in several other WV counties. As you stated in your letter, he has invested his time and some funds in the purchase of acid free paper and folders. But in my conversations with him and the clerk, his efforts are for the preservatin of the records an access to them. In my conversations with Mr Link and Mr Rice, we have discussed the project, the arrangement of the various records, devolpment of the index to access these records and arranging microfilming of these so as to preserve the originals. The plan is to make these records accessible to the public as soon as we can. THe index is a work in progress an as a working index, it is not complete or accurate. The more widely the index is dispersed in this form, the more chance there would be for insufficient information on the records that have not yet been included as a new entry or as an addition to an existing entry. The clerk and her staff already have an established policy of forwarding research inquirines into older records to a volunteer who charges for the research service. The dual chekc process you describe in your letter was revised after a telephone discussion with me in which it was decided that all inquiries should be handled in the same manner. I have advised the clerk that it is in the best interest of the preservation of these fragile records ot reduce the handling to a minimum (projects such as this usually consider the records closed until after processing, indexing and microfilming) so as to maintain their condition an not compromise them for microfilming. The records must be arranged and indexed before they can be filmed, and we will not know the total number of record images to be filmed or the cost for filming these records until this is complete. As the records were found after the current budget year preparations, available budget funds and staff time may have some direct impact on the progress of this part of the project. Th news that there are individuals interested in donating to defray the cost of microfilming the records is welcome. I hope I have responded to your questions regarding access to the records so taht you can better understand and appreciate the challenges Ms Link and Mr Rice face, as well as put some of your concerns to rest. The index being prepared by Mr Rice will serve as the index to the records and will be filmed to provide access to the microfilm of these records. Once filmed, copies of the film will be made available for the courthouse and for purchase for the local library. It should be possible to make arrangements for user copies to be available at other libraries, but this has not been discussed with the clerk. We are please these records have been re-located and are being processed so as to re-establish public access. The discovering of records and their potential for answeres to questions we have about history and family is exciting. We hope you and others involved in these pursuits can exercise patience a little longer until the processing, indexing and microfilming is complete. I look forward to working with you and others in a mutual efforts to make West Virginia's public and historical records better preserved and more accessible. Sincerely, Fred Armstrong Director, Archives and History (I responded with my thanks to Dr Armstrong, and relayed to him that if the Hampshire Co Clerk had made any such statement in the first place, I'm sure there would not have been so much misunderstanding and distress by many genealogical researchers). Shortly after this, I unofficially heard that Mr Rice had "quit" his efforts. I again emailed Dr Armstrong who told me he would look into it. Several weeks ago, I again emailed him His response was: Mrs. McDonald: I received your previous message and delayed responding in hopes of having some positive information to share. Thus far I have been unsuccessful in getting that information. I know Mr. Rice dropped out of the project in November. As of earlier this month he had not returned and the process of completing the processing of the records and the index are on hold. But, until I have the opportunity of discussing this at length with the direct parties, either in person or by phone, I am not in a position to give you a definitive answer. My intentions are to find a way to conclude the arrangement and preparation of the loose papers, complete the index and then find the means to microfilm and make them accessible. I will try to gather some additional information this week and get back to you then. Sorry to be unable to provide you with a more definitive answer and for not responding earlier. I did receive some information last week from someone close to the project, but not enough. Fredrick H. Armstrong I have been patiently biding my time, in hopes that Dr. Armstrong can come up with a constructive way to correctly handle this situation before creating any more havoc among us. Since this issue has again come up, I feel I should share my responses with you. I hope this helps all of you who are interested in writing letters, and saves your time as to who to write to. Patti