Dear Cousins, I hope you all have survived the election, the holidays, and are happy and well as we enter either the first or the second year of the millenium -- that you are "wintering" well, as my Dad used to describe it! As for me, I have had a physically-challenged time of it, with severe pain in my knees which have been self-destructing for five or six years now. Also, there has been emotional pain, with a birthday that has challenged my mental health! I am back in school, and each day is a challenge there, with trying to concentrate on complex subjects which don't sit in a pain-filled brain in the ways I'd like. Challenged is the word for me right now. There has been no word on the scholarship (Dec 15 was their original date to notify applicants) I had applied for that would have encompassed American Crossroads' goals in developing and presenting new genealogy and history methodology via the internet. I am trying to plunge ahead, but my plunging doesn't seem to progress very quickly. American Crossroads is a year old. Goals that I originally had set for the site have remained essentially the same, except my ideas of how to accomplish them have gotten more specific, and I have certainly learned and progressed in web concepts and design. More important than the design concepts is the fervent belief that we are on the right track with our research methodology. As a restatement of some things and some new ideas, here is my "State of the State" Statement! First, pursuit of excellence -- we may not always reach perfection in our family quests, but we certainly can strive for excellence through following standards of excellence. The National Genealogical Society's website lists standards which are not only admirable, but are just common sense. This year from 16 to 19 May, We -- Portland OR, the Rose City -- will host the NGS National Convention! Y'all Come! I would love to meet you! The NGS website: http://www.gfo.org/ngs2001/index.htm 2. The List -- I have long felt that lists best serve the purpose of communication and networking, but do not really lend themselves well to exchanges of complicated lineages and data. This list is certainly not chatty, but I don't feel that is a big problem, especially since other lists seem to be having the same difficulties. Check in every now and then -- give a whoop! -- and let us know your interests and ideas. I have sort of used the list as a newsletter, and that seems to work okay to keep everyone informed about what is going on at the website, and things I find on the internet. The list should also promote our kinship with one another. I hope this can be developed more this year. 3. I want to develop a Library, or at least a Bibliography of works that will be helpful. These will likely end up in regional areas on the website. 4. During the next month I plan to start loading some of the databases I have been compiling over the last year. I keep wanting to get them finalized -- reach that perfection! -- and now it seems that I should just go ahead and share what I have collected and formatted. 5. Establishment of Native American pages and their history, families, and connections within the Perimeters. 5. Finally, the Format of the site will change somewhat to better reflect the Crossroads Regions and Perimeters and the information on hand. This will be the area where you Cousins can really contribute. I will have (for want of a better description) Biographies/Surname Study -- on each of the surnames of interest that we will follow through each of the Perimeters, and then within each surname, a family group with lists of interested researchers and participants and descendants. This is expanding upon what we have begun, for example, with the Levi The Quaker Study. For example: LOCALITY Mid-Atlantic Crossroads Sub-locality SW Virginia/NW North Carolina Perimeter A. HISTORY of the region -- Lists of Early Settlers, churches, roads, local issues, military involvement, etc.; Census indexes and lists, B. IDENTITY (History of the people) Surnames (and Variants) : Pennington, Beason, Beall, Pugh, Goad, Watts, McDaniel, Preston, Barnes, Sayers, Carter, Markham, (etc. etc.) (1.) Kinship Groups -- Interrelated families (You will see these begin to overlap and intertwine) (2.) Individual Families, i.e., Levi Pennington, The Quaker; (3.) Individual People -- Christopher Gist; Daniel Boone, William Preston, C. DATABASES and timelines that reflect and incorporate the records of all of these. The databases are not gedcoms generated from genealogical software programs! The databases are ACTUAL RECORDS, or indexes of ACTUAL RECORDS. The idea is to take a fact and work outward from it, developing information on each associated name, locality, and each bit of pertinent data. I will put up -- Tomorrow! Tomorrow! You'll love me Tomorrow! --some examples of what I have developed on Ephraim Pennington of York County, PA! Stay Tuned to this station! I will upload the information to the website and you will be able to follow the linkages and the logic. Also, this is all from the internet. I don't have much access anymore to original documents. Next, I want to rearrange the Levi The Quaker Study so it will be easier to follow and see interrelationships. I have databases to connect here, too, and several pages to add. Happy New Year! Let me hear from you! Welcome to our new subscribers! Love, Your Wonky Old Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads