Most of you seem to like the idea of putting our data to work for us. We need to keep it simple to make it workable. I will be posting my list of New York Akers in the next day or so. Everybody interested can download it, see what has already been covered, add what they have that is not included or correct any mistakes or variations and repost it with their additions and also a separate list of their additions. Title it by state name and the date you posted it. At the moment limit it ,for this week at least, to just New York state and just from 1600 thru 1850. Just put in Akers names, and dates and associated names. Put in a little, put in a lot, one key clue can make a diference to someone. Put in any reference, from any source that has Akers's living in New York between 1600 and 1850. This is just going to be a big database that we can all use to further our research. Remember even if your Akers family is not connected to New York, if you have any listings in your research they will help someone else. We can do other states after this one. Ardie has volunteered to work on Indiana. I just want to start with one and get all the bugs out of it before we take on too much and get swamped. This is not a rollcall per se, just a list of Akers who lived in New York between 1600 and 1850. I picked New York because I had already started on that area and there are not so many Akers as in Va. NJ, OH etc. I want to get the bugs out of this idea before we take on the big boys. About me: I'm not writing a book on genealogy, just trying to trace my family roots because it interests me. I am a professional artist, you can check out my web site at www.bizclip.com/herrondesigns to see what I do. I just want to reassure everyone that I just want to trace my family. I do have some experience in doing research as I was a research analyst in the USAF during the 60's and I was stationed at USAF Intelligence HQ at Kelly AFB in Texas as well as at Task Force Alpha in Thailand, and NSA in Maryland. Basically what we did was to collect a ton of raw data, mostly radio call signs and try and find patterns and connections in them. You would be amazed at what you can find by looking at things this way. I hope to apply these skills along with the skills of all of you to come up with some interesting stuff on the various Akers families. Let me know your comments and look for my list in the next couple of days— start gathering your own material state by state. Craig Herron ggggreatgrandson of Rachel Akers b. 1804 in NY (guess why I picked NY to start?)