Dear Cousins, Once again I have had some severe problems with my local internet service provider, but I believe all is straight now. I have uploaded a new homepage for the American Crossroads website. It's not perfect yet, but I'm working on it. Sometime later today I hope to have a new Master Index -- although all letters will not be functioning yet -- which will be the basis of connecting to databases, family summaries, localitiy summaries, etc. The other thing I hope to have up will be a Kith and Kin page which will sort of be the lead in to family summaries. One of the families I am using to demonstrate the value of following and researching allied families is the Litzenberg(er) family, who began in Radnor twp, in that part of Chester County, Pennsylvania which is now Delaware County. I wrote this article some time ago, and am reformatting it in a manner which I believe more clearly portrays the families involved than the current genealogy software, and the old style 5 generation systems did (similar to the LDS reports, which sometimes details so much information on descendants in each generations you can't see or remember where you began. and what it means. I have long believed that conveying true meaning of our thoughts is not so easy via e-mail. I've tried to set up this list and the American Crossroads website so that an interactive exchange of information can be facilitated. Evolving good formats doesn't come easy. We are still really in a time when internet possibilities are still being tested and expanded. Another concept I've tried to promote is the free exchange of genealogical information. Rootsweb has made itself a model for doing this. So many Dot com businesses that have sought to make money off of users or subscribers have either failed, or alienated enough people that they've had to change. I think there are quite legitimate means of making genealogy into a business, and Ancestry.com is one of the few which has successfully done so. They have worked a balance between free information and databases which one must subscribe to, and ultimately I hope we might achieve the same balance with our American Crossroads information. Someone who has gone out of their way to research and compose copyrighted information from their research should be compensated for their efforts. I hope we can explore ways to find a balance in this area. In the meantime, I am putting up the Litzenbergs as the example of a format for presenting information at the website. This information is part of the section of American Crossroads which I'm labelling "Family Summaries." The information comes from a source which is not guaranteed to be accurate. It is family information, not data; not verified research, unless so designated. It is to be used as a guide, used for developing clues to research possibilities, and as a finding aid. I want to be able to set up any number of these Summaries and let them point the way to networking (which I believe is the true purpose for e-mail.) I would like for all of you to include this same type of information for your own family summaries. From these family summaries, and cooperating in research on them, we can develop your own sections of the website. You may have unlimited space at the website to do this in your own name. On each of the family summaries a section will appear with those who are fellow toilers in the vinyard of this particular family. We will do the same thing in the Locality Summaries. So far I have set up pages for Mary, Marilyn, Cari and Leigh, (Cousin Jim is next) but I haven't really had time to format them into an organized way until now, and so just now I am beginning to get them into understandable arrangements. By this I mean understandable genealogically, and understandable for computer and internet use. The other format I want to address is a good means of expressing a Family Group Page on the internet. I felt that Diana Gale Mathieson's format for her family groups was especially good. I am putting the Litzenberg information into that type of format, and invite your comments. Thanks to our faithful cousin Marilyn for her comments on Diana's pages and format! If you missed it before, here is Diana's site again: http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/ The location of the Litzenberg article will be: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Famsum/litzen.html The location of the new Kinship page is: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Kinship/index.html Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= To subscribe to the American Crossroads Discussion List: Send a message to: AMXROADS-L-request@rootsweb.com with the single word subscribe in the body of the message --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads