Beyond Fiction

OK, I’m not trying to be negative but I had an incredibly eye-opening experience today. On my research trip today I was excited to finally go searching for birth and death records of folks who were born in the late 1800s and died in the very early 1900s. How wonderful it would be to get some of the information off of those records!

The woman at the County Clerk’s office was very nice and helpful and the indexes were so good. The problem was that in order to get a death certificate that was almost 100 years old I had to fill out a form detailing my relationship and then pay $21.00 for a death certificate and $23.00 for a birth certificate. I asked why I couldn’t just get a regular, uncertified copy and was told that all they have now is the certified copies. Well, that was very surprising to me! I am being charged $20 something for copies of certificates that I’ve been getting online for free or for just $50 a year at Footnote! What’s up with that?

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For those who complain about having to pay for access to services such as Footnote, why not think about this. If I had paid the price at the court house for the death certificates I have obtained from Family Search for free (55), then the total price would be $1, 155! That is ridiculous! What’s worse, some of the death certificates I have gotten from Family Search are not even on the index at the court house! The same goes for the birth indexes at the court house and what I have gotten on Footnote!

And that is not including the cost of gas if I had to drive all over Texas looking for them!

I think I will take a very different approach when it comes to paying for access to certain records! I know now that things could be a lot worse! I am also convinced that some folks need to step back and think about things before complaining about paying for services online!

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