I recently received an email that Missouri was going to make it harder to access all of their vital records, require photo ID, reason for request and/or a signed notorization when requesting copies. They, too, claim it has to do with preventing identity theft. Lynda Quoting Clay Gullatt <[log in to unmask]>: > If you do not scribe to ancestry.com, which is expensive or have access to > Heritage Quest for free, I think the best free records is at the LDS Family > Search website. It includes the census records, federal and state, many with > images attached, many marriage, birth and death records. Depending on > the state > many of the marriage, birth and death records have an image attached. > > The LDS have said they intend to put all the records they have in > their Granite > Mountain storage site on the Internet this would include the milllions county > records. They are constantly adding new records. > > I agree that many of the family trees on the LDS website are terrible > and have > many, many errors, I don't use the website for the family trees but for the > actual records many of which are available no where else on the Internet. The > Temple ready records I ignore. I fully expect that my name will > appear on their > website as Temple ready after my death with my official birth date but not my > actual one because the date on my birth certificate is incorrect. > > Other great sites are those of the USGENWEB Archives Projects that > they have for > just about every county in the US. > > I must say that some states are much better with access to their records that > others. The worst I have encountered is Kansas where you have to > prove you are > related to the individual you are seeking info on or you get nothing > no matter > how old the record is. Some of the best are Georgia's Virtual Vault and West > Virginia's Archives and History website. > > There are not many people that are 110 years old and I don't think anyone is > trying to steal their identity. Isn't it about time that our legislators and > record keepers have a little common sense? If they want to make money off the > records, as many do, then charge a reasonable copy fee for the > information and > not try to gouge the public. > > Clay > > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at > http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html