From The Collection, we thank Mary Louise Christovich, Chairman of the Board of the Williams Foundation, and Priscilla Lawrence, Executive Director of the Historic New Orleans Collection, who kept faith throughout the long process of databasing the Index. We are also grateful for the dedication of Gerald Patout (formerly of HNOC) and Daniel Hammer, who supervised the project as it progressed. And we thank the members of the Systems Department, whose skills (and patience) insured that the final product would live up to everyone's expectations. And we extend our special thanks to the revolving team of HNOC processors, who, over a period of more than eight years, diligently typed in the hundreds of thousands of entries that make up the database. The database exists because of their work.