Hi Greene County Listers:
I live in North Carolina. In the past I have requested marriage licenses
and death certificates from Greene County and have had no problem
whatsoever getting them. Last week I sent away for three more marriage
licenses giving names of both the groom and the bride plus the date.
Today I received my three checks back with a letter that stated:
"Due to the large number of requests received daily in our office for
research and the limited staffing of our office, we are unable to
perform the hours of searching required. As always, our records are open
to anyone desiring to do research. The search you have requested can be
conducted by any title/abstract company or any investigator. A local
researcher is: Mary Robbins, PO Box 603, Bloomfield, IN 47424." It was
signed by Tom Franklin.
I was compelled to talk to them about this, so I phoned and got the exact
same response. I mentioned that for those of us who live out of state,
it is impossible to do our own researching. I asked if this was just a
temporary situation.....no, it was permanent. I told him that I have
dealt with counties all over the U.S. getting vital records and Greene
County was the first one to refuse me like this. I thought they HAD to
furnish the records. No, the office is just too overwhelmed with
requests. But, if I had the book number and the page number, they'd
look for it. I told him I furnished the exact date but he said that even
with the exact date it sometimes took several hours to find the
information.
So, if we all contact Mary Robbins to do our look ups for us, won't she
be overwhelmed too?
This situation has really provoked me. Have any of the rest of you run
into this same thing?
Carole Shoptaw in North Carolina
czechgal(a)juno.com
.