Dear Mary Ann, and Cousins on the List, We are not really interested in just one family, except the family of man -- I think you are more a part of our family than you think! I looked up the year without a summer on Google, and read with some fascination more about the year without a Summer. I am always interested in sidelights of history. I found several pages about it, and that a volcano had erupted which had altered the weather. http://home.thezone.net/~bwhiffen/articles/Rals.htm http://wchs.csc.noaa.gov/1816.htm Along about the same era there was an earthquake which was pretty startling to people too. It was called the New Madrid Earthquake. http://hsv.com/genlintr/newmadrd/accnt3.htm Some of the commentary here is quite like what you are interested in, the reaction that people were somehow to blame themselves for what had happened -- and also that they might move to where it was safer. I was also interested to see that the earthquake affected parts of Kentucky and Tennessee where some of my Watts and allied families had lived, and also, they had moved to Illinois in that same time frame. Now I'm really curious about whether the earthquake might have influenced them. It was right after the War of 1812, and bounty land was being given for service, but I think my family moved prior to the end of the War of 1812, so now I am curious. There are two websites at the University of Michigan and Cornell University called the Making of America that provide a digital library of principally 19th century texts devoted to history, and I regularly mine them for information. They are searchable, and I'm sure you could find some more thoughts about these things at those sites. http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moa.new/ http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/ We tend of think of migrations in terms of the acts of man: War, religious persecution, quarrels with neighbors, more land elsewhere, but this is a whole new perspective on the wrath of the elements affecting and creating motivations for moves. Thanks for some stimulating ideas, Mary Ann. PS to Jim -- I got a Norton virus warning on one of the e-mails that came in today. It had an attachment, and I was grateful for your warning about the dreaded Klez. I had downloaded the klez fighter after your warning and sad story. Everybody else should be aware! I was shut down from a similar one last year before I had Norton. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn