Hello Nigel. I'm familiar with those sources, but getting to them is another matter. You're quite right. I tend to do as much as I can from my computer at home, rather than ordering films and venturing over to the family history centre. For a number of reasons, it's hard for me to get there more than a couple of times a year, if that.

My real question is: why can't we access more of these things from home? Brian and Frances and Donna (and many others including yourself) are special heroes to me because you/they have worked so hard to make more information available through the internet and this BB. For me and others, it's very difficult to get to the FHC. I would guess that 50% of our audience are not accessible to a family history centre, either by geography or otherwise. So we have to work with what we can reach, frustrating as this is.

I'm not complaining (ok, maybe I am a wee bit), but just want you to understand it's not as easy as it seems. Maybe in my lifetime I'll see these wonderful things on my PC. I bet many others would love to see that happen.

Another topic, which should be it's own thread probably: Will the detail birth, marriage, death records for Britain and IOM ever be made available to the public without paying an exorbitant fee for a certificate that often is a shot in the dark? Why not make it all available for, say, over 100 years ago? I've never seen this question on this BB, but it's probably my #1 frustration.