Dear Carolyn and cousins, I have really enjoyed reading the postings to the American Crossroads site the past few days. I was so impressed by the one you did on searching for allied families. That has always been of great interest to me and it has "paid off" big time just in the past few days. Some time ago I posted a query to genforum on my Pennington line in Chester County, PA. I listed all the children of John and Lydia Pennington and their spouses. Lo and behold, last week I had a message from a man in Minnesota whose gg grandmother was a step daughter of Mary Pennington WAY. John Way had married first Eliza Hoopes and 2nd Mary Pennington. This wonderful man had inherited an old photo album of pictures of John and Mary, their children, and some of her step children, along with a couple photos of Mary's cousins. He is sending me copies!!! I can hardly wait. Margaretta Pennington Phillips (my gg grandmother) died when she was in her thirties, in the early 1860's and there are NO pictures at all of her. The best I have are pictures of her grand children. You can imagine my thrill of finally being able to get a chance to see what she may have looked like. Granted, this is her sister, but maybe they resembled each other. A big break through came about yesterday when another Pennington researcher and I found that her ancestor, Sophia Pennington Thompson, had a sister, Amanda, who married Elias Baker. Elias Baker turned up in Montgomery County, PA, in the 1920 miracode census and we discovered that he had a wife named Amanda. Turns out she was the one we were looking for. We had never been able to figure out who Sophia Pennington Thompson's parents were, she apparently died in Chester County, PA, and there were no records, no tombstone (so far), nothing!! Well the other lady wrote to PA state and asked them to see if there was a death certificate for this Amanda Baker. She received the copy yesterday and the parents are both listed. William Pennington and Eliza VanSandt. William was a brother of my Margaretta!! One has to really hunt sometimes to find the answers, but the search can pay off in so many important ways. Your cousin, Marilyn