Missouri is a prime example of what can be done right (http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/) in allowing Americans free access to documents that are in every sense their own. We as Americans should not have to pay for access to our own history and the documentation of it.
It is one thing to pay for an organizational, social, or artistic display of this information. Examples being websites like Ancestry.com, or a history museum. It is quite another to charge Americans for access per document concerning their own history.
We already paid to have the documents recorded. Why should we then have to pay again for access to them? Further, why is any company allowed to charge us for access to them?
This should apply to all Federal and State records that are not a matter of national security.