Donald: I understand the budgetary restraints but I find that you have to start with the first step. As for the privacy issues, The WV site limits birth records to 75 years prior to the present year, death and marriage records appear to be limited to 40 years prior to the present year. The records given are actual images and are FREE. The link to see how this works is: http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_select.aspx It is unbelievable how much information is contained in some of the actual death and marriage records. I haven't found any such images on the LVA site. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place or just to dense. I tried the link given by Tim but was not able to make it work. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html