Dear Cousins, I have completed a new page for the website on KINSHIP, and hope it demonstrates how we will not progress in our research quests without examining the peers around our families with missing links. I use the Penningtons as an example because they are the heart of my theories and research. In life and genealogy, we need to learn to make lemonade when we're given lemons. A big lemon in my genealogical life became the means of developing my new methodologies. I was a part of an organization devoted to Surname Research, which had withered on the vine. Through a lot of bitter frustration in trying to change them, I discovered I was not going to, and so I formed American Crossroads -- my lemonade! How Sweet It Is! By learning and growing through these mistakes, through using the new technologies and applying new methodologies, I have been able to accomplish in a year what has not been achieved in 20 years with old ways and old attitudes. First you have to recognize what is wrong. It is very hard for people to see and admit they're wrong, or that they've have taken a wrong turn. But in order to get better, you have to change the direction of what you're doing. So I want always to be open to suggestion, to offers of help in creating new databases or directing studies or anything else that can help improve our efforts. I think Barb was right on target recently when she said she found the big picture pretty daunting. I think where I have fallen down is through not getting pages uploaded that make access easier. It is because I never seem to have enough time. I get involved in the current project and the current research (and school, and trying to have a life, and get my internet access problems straightened out) and don't get back to adding and changing the indexes, and adding and re-doing the new URLs and HTML. Although right now I am the whole show I hope ultimately to have others of you become responsible for various Crossroads and Perimeters, or even for smaller efforts, like Kinship groups, or Quakers, for instance. I think the other area where I have fallen down is in translating and portraying my ideas to everybody, at all levels of experience and interest. Here, too, I think I can do better. I have long felt that e-mail is great for connecting and networking, but is not the best way to convey genealogical information. I thought that the website would resolve that, but I think a physical, hold it in your hands, old-style publication would do better for some of our members or potential members. I have learned from my recent GENTECH award that the gap is still far from closed between TECHNOLOGY and GENEALOGY/FAMILY HISTORY. I am thinking about solutions, and hope you may have suggestions too. I hope this Kinship page stimulates your imagination and helps you picture your own missing links into the interconnecting chains. Please let me know your thoughts and how I can help paint pictures that will help us all grow and improve our efforts. I will also be doing similar pages for History and Localities. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I am on my way to Eastern Oregon to remember my roots and my loved ones. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads