Friday, August 17, 2007

NARA Fee Increases Announced

Dick Eastman posted the link to the Federal Register report for August 17, 2007 with the notice of the National Archives Record Administration fee increases (remember the proposed fee increases were announced in February with a deadline for comments in late April?). The fee increases go into effect on 1 October 2007. The Federal Register announcement is here.

The fees announced include:

** Passenger Arrival Lists (NATF Form 81) -- $25

** Federal Census Requests (NATF Form 82) -- $25

** Eastern Cherokee Applications to Court of claims (NATF Form 83) -- $25

** Land Entry Records (NATF Form 84) -- $40

** Full Pension file more than 75 years old (post-Civil War) (NATF form 85) -- $75 (up to 100 pages)

** Full Pension File (pre-Civil War) (NATF Form 85) -- $50

** Pension documents packet (selected records) (NATF Form 85) -- $25

** Bounty Land Warrant Application files (NATF Form 85) -- $25

** Military Service Files (greater than 75 years old) (NATF Form 86) -- $25.

If you recall, the Civil War Pension Files were going to be $125 - NARA reacted to the comments from the genealogy/history community and reduced the fee to $75 for the first 100 pages of a Pension File from the Civil War and later. However, if there are more than 100 pages in the file, they will charge $0.65 per page, but they will notify you first to determine if you want the complete file and what the charge will be.

It appears that the letter writing campaign did some good.

Fortunately, at least some of these records are available at one or more commercial genealogy web sites - the Rev War Pension selected documents are at HeritageQuestOnline, the full Rev War Pension files are being added to Footnote.com, the Passenger Lists are on Ancestry.com, etc. And many of these records are available on microfilm at the Family History Library or a National Archives branch for review and copying.

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