A lady contacted me just over a week ago, saying she had been contacted privately by someone researching the same surname as I am, and she had given this "someone" quite a bit of information. Then she said she had seen my e-mail address on several message boards, and thought she'd contact me to see whether I was researching the same line. Well, I certainly AM! :-) She had quite a bit of documentation (PROVEN STUFF, mind you), and showed me that my ggfather had a sister I hadn't known about! She was born between my ggf and his younger brother...explains the 6-year gap between the two of them, a very strange thing 150 years ago...This girl's short life overlapped the 1861 Canadian census period, and missed the next one. This lady did some digging and found that the girl had died at age 6, and found a burial record in addition to the census which listed her. (I had been given quite a bit of census info from a distant Canadian cousin, and it had not occurred to me to have this cousin look back another census period...her data was from 1871 and more recent.) Here's the kicker, and why I brought this to chat instead of to the regular list...I have pretty much gotten over it, having given myself a week to deal with my frustration. But the person this lady had helped first is a distant cousin, someone who had contacted me about 1-1/2 years ago for assistance when she was getting started. (Her gfather and my gmother were brother & sister.) I gave her my entire tree, copies of some documentation (birth, baptismal, marriage, death records) and copies of photos. And I have graciously, carefully, sensitively answered her absolutely DUMB QUESTIONS for 18 months. (There really IS such a thing as a dumb question. Some people just aren't cut out for research. Let's leave it at that.) Why in the world wouldn't she have shared this data with me??? And when she received a copy of our gggfather's prison record, she e-mailed a virtually unusable copy, and when I asked on several occasions for a "real" copy via snail mail (as I had sent my data to her 18 months ago), she came up with many reasons she hadn't done it yet. The funny thing is, she had said "you don't want to KNOW what I had to do to get this!" But when I called the MI State Archive, told them what I was looking for, and gave them the background information, they mailed the copy of the record to me about 10 days later, AT NO CHARGE. I was ready to jump through hoops and sign away my life's savings, and it was as easy as a phone call. In the MI Archive, they have a 20-minute rule. They will spend 20 minutes looking for your record, and if it can be found in that time they will copy and send it at no cost to you. So I feel like I've been duped, having given someone my life's blood, and then been cut out when new and exciting stuff turned up. But at least there are good folks out there who take it upon themselves to approach others when they think they can be of assistance. MORAL: Keep posting to the message boards, even if you think it's a waste of time!! Sue G. IBSSG

Sue G, I feel your frustration in my search. I won't go into it all, but this is a fine example of those who take and do not give. Even though it's hard at a time like this, remember who you are as a person and don't let her warp that. And you've reminded me that I've promised some stuff to some people and gotten distracted by problems in other areas of my life and totally spaced it. Pamela Susan T Grove wrote: > > A lady contacted me just over a week ago, saying she had been contacted > privately by someone researching the same surname as I am, and she had given > this "someone" quite a bit of information. Then she said she had seen my