I beg to differ with you on one point, Shirley. Not *everything* is sold thru the "Letter exchange." The Historic Genealogical Society of Marion County doesn't, to my knowledge, have any of their publications listed there. Yet, we have many books for sale that include parts of Searcy Co, Baxter Co., Boone Co., Newton Co., and MO counties. We, too, sell resource materials - books - at the Ancestor Fair. We also purchase resource materials for our Research Room in the Marion County Library - to be shared with and used by whoever drops in. We gain in both respects. We make money by selling our wares so that we have the resources with which to purchase others' wares - genealogical/historical research materials. We've attended the Ancestor Fair for 11 of its 12 years, sold our publications, carted tons of our research materials to each fair, made these resources available for research to anyone and everyone who dropped by our table, helped untold numbers of folks connect their families to Marion Co families, talked 'til our voices are gone, shared - for free - whatever we could from the store of knowledge in our brains, ended up the day with headaches the size of Texas. We've come away with more knowledge than we went with, more resource materials, many new (to us) research friends, and the joyful knowledge that we've helped lots of folks find information they'd been unable to find before. Yes, we often charge for our research. When we're expected to spend several hours in the courthouse vault, for example, we're not doing it for free. When we're expected to tramp cemeteries and knock on people's doors and make long-distance phone calls or a jillion copies, we're not doing it for free. However, when someone asks for information from a book we have here in our homes (or on our table at the Ancestor Fair), we're more than willing to "share it for free." If this is commercialism, I need to get a new dictionary. Mysty shakerag@mtnhome.com ************************************************ ----- Original Message ----- From: Shirley Reedy <sreedy@aristotle.net> To: <ARSEARCY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 9:43 PM Subject: [ARSEARCY] Genealogy fair > Hello gang, I must apologize to James Johnston. Some of the mail I > received thought that I was saying that JJJ sold too much. what I meant was > that there were so many people selling books and that was all that they were > doing. It's fine to sell books, but they are sold thru the Letter exchange. > One lady handed me some papers and said "e-mail me if you see any that are > yours" I got home and looked at the last page and she told what she > charged. If anybody wants to pay, that is fine, but I give mine to anyone > who asks for it. James is doing a wonderful job and I hope he doesn't quit. > Jusr another case of foot in mouth disease. > Shirley > > > > ============================== > Ancestry.com Genealogical Databases > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist2.asp > Search over 2500 databases with one easy query! >