Loretta: I remember going to a site that Scott had linked in one of his blogs- it was done by the author Ed Rybczynski- I have e-mailed the original article directly from his site .

He demonstrates the potential errors that can be had by using different search parameters- he failed to use a "wild card" in the searches which would have eliminated the multiple searches all together- it would have brought up the possible variations that he encountered- and it is always a good idea to familiarize oneself wit ht he methods of searching within the on-line sites- it has saved me many times- so if I was searching your name I would enter- "reed, loretta" and it would give "only" that name and sets of letters- but if I entered "reed, Lor%" I would get everything that could occur alphabetically after the "r", which would include loran, lorrain, lorretta, etc-

I have subscribed to the Md on-line sites to look some stuff up- and found they were lacking in time frame-I was only able to go back a short time in Montgomery county-(I lived there for a while and my brother still does)- but I did not try any others.maybe Baltimore- but I don't remember. As such, I don't think I can comment on anything more about the MD sites and you may or are correct about the possibility of errors- my point was just to use a wild card on part of the name to be sure you are getting all the possibilities.

Steve