Louisiana Ged Online

Q: I have hundreds of living cousins of 3rd cousin rank or closer. Does anyone know of a database I can buy (on CDs) of all births, deaths and marriages in Louisiana (or nationally), covering about 100 to 10 years ago, to identify all of these cousins? I am not an identity thief or a private investigator, or anything like that, I just want to automate the process of looking up hundreds of living cousins. And hooking them into my genealogical database. I can get information from GED files on the net up to about 100 years ago, but people do not include the living. Can anyone point me to a CD product that I could buy and examine on my home PC?

A:I very much doubt that there is such a database except at the state department in Louisiana that keeps vital records. And they probably would not publish such a data base as it would cut into

the revenue obtained for records and certificates. You could try writing to your state(s) of interest and asking if they have a CD or online product available. This site also lists waiting periods for the records to be open; for example, for a non-descendant to obtain New York marriage records, "Genealogy copies are available (see prices) if the certificate has been on file for at least 50 years and the bride and groom are both known to be deceased." You could go to the state or county/parish's USGenWeb or World GenWeb site, and see if a historical or genealogical society has done transcripts of vital records from newspapers or other publicly available sources.