Dear Cousins, I am so excited, I can hardly type. I have been moving -- !! again, but this time just a few feet, from our back old house to our front old house. My phone was to be transferred and of course, was messed up so I haven't been able to post for several days. Thank you Beej, for all your posts and sharing. Before I started the big move, I ordered up a new domain name and have gotten the homepage set up, although none of the other pages is operational yet. More tonight! The new domain is http://www.backcountrycrossroads.com This new domain will be an extension of American Crossroads, but will give me the opportunity to put up my books for sale, along with other endeavors to try and get the American Crossroads Project to the point where it is self supporting. I hope next to be able to inforporate as a non-profit organization. The main pages on the internet will continue to be at rootsweb, but no commercial activities are allowed there. I will be selling genealogy and history books, calendars, etc., my Pathways to the Past Online Interactive Genealogy Course, my personal writings, etc. (Great Gifts!!) Listmembers and subscribers can also post and market their items and talent there as well. The most exciting aspect will be a magazine publication which will be offered both on CD and in print form, which is called Homecoming. Homecoming will reflect American Crossroads' History, Genealogy, Art, Literature, etc., (a great deal of what American Crossroads presents online) in a magazine that will be available to non-internet users as well as those who would like to be able to peruse the information in hand. But it will offer more as well. We have learned a terrible lesson from the tragedies of 9-11. Heritage and kinship stretch across many miles and years for all Americans. Homecoming will reflect our need to network, communicate, and revitalize our concepts of family and community through our great American heritage. Homecoming will be offered as a subscription, and while it will always reflect the American Crossroads website, it will present more material than is possible on the internet. Ultimately I hope to be able to publish the entire American Crossroads research -- the migration of settlers along the Delaware River in the mid-1600's, all the way to the present on West Coast -- literally "from sea to shinina sea," and over a period of 350 years. But, this is definitely a work in progress! Sales at the new website will fund the ongoing research. For now, however, what has been published at American Crossroads to date will be offered on CD's and in the Homecoming Magazine. The first FEATURE PRESENTATION in Homecoming Magazine will provide new clues and research that I believe will provide impetus toward a whole new attitude and view of the Maryland Penningtons, from which almost all Penningtons descend. This is a seafood platter for everyone's enjoyment that Pennington Cousins Ric, and Dick and Isabel and I cooked up from a most delicious and joyous New England Homecoming last month after the GENTECH2002 convention I attended in Boston. The primary focus of this study will be an examination of Abraham Pennington, the Trader, backward and forward. BUT, please don't think this magazine will be ONLY be about Penningtons! It focuses on pockets of people, on the history and ever changing localities of these backcountry folk from the Delaware River Valley, all across our broad country. This is not a surname publication, but a social history of America told through genealogical research. In addition, the methodology used will enable your own renewed efforts on puzzles yet to be resolved -- together. The new Homecoming Magazine will offer the first issue FREE to listmember who subscribes for two years/ -- four issues -- $24.00 per year, but for yooooooouuuuuuuu my Dear Ones -- $18.00. The First Edition issue will be mailed out by 1 September 2002. All details will be available at the new website by tomorrow. This is less than the cost of a paperback! http://www.backcountrycrossroads.com/Homecoming/index.html This is a very exciting time for me -- the fruition of a lot of dreams. I am living in a house where my grandparents moved just after WWII -- The Big One. My mom worked, and my Grandpa and Grandma Smith, her parents, took care of me here. It was here Grandpa taught me how to tie my shoelaces, how to play checkers, and indirectly and unintentionally, how to cuss! My Grandma died in 1966, and Grandpa in 1972. Shortly before Grandpa died a flood wiped out my parents home, the only log house in town, and my folks moved into this house. I moved back to Oregon in 1993 because my Dad was very ill and I came here to this house each weekend to visit and care for him over the next three years when he died in 1996 at age 95. This small house holds 57 years of large memories. I captured bees in hollyhocks here. Great weaponry! I made mudpies here for Lulu Belle, my hungry dolly, and the neighborhood kids and I rode stick horses conveniently corralled on the back 40 for playing cowboys and Indians. My mother is still nearby in the old hotel which has been turned into a Senior Center and retirement apartments. There is still much to be learned about community here, and much to be taught. This is a re-beginning, and yet a never ending circle, just as American Crossroads is also, and which Homecoming Magazine will become as well. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@centurytel.net cmcdani@earthlink.net ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads and Backcountry Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads http://www.backcountrycrossroads.com