Albert wrote: >typed in BLANCHARD and saw several come up. Check this site out...you may find > a document that >your ancestor wrote. I received a spam notice from that person (multiple copies, as a matter of fact, since I have several different e-mail addresses). Amazingly enough, the document that was being "pushed" actually did refer to my gggf and his wife (nee Sarah Blanchard, as it happens). Naturally, I couldn't resist taking a look. The document was a deed of sale of a piece of land in Princeton, Mass, where my gggp's lived. They were selling the property to one Simon Blanchard (probably her brother, but possibly her father). Unfortunately, although there were seals on the document, and the signature of Leonard Chandler, there was neither a signature nor a mark for his wife Sarah (which may mean that the sale was never legally completed -- I wonder if I may be part heir to a piece of land in Princeton). In any case, to put things in perspective, I must say that deeds like this were executed by the bushel (I mean that literally -- I found an old bushel basket in my grandmother's barn that was overflowing with deeds of sale on small parcels of land in and around Princeton, dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, mostly executed by my g-g-uncle John, who would buy a woodlot, log it, and then resell the land.) Also, such documents were probably written out by a lawyer, rather than by the parties to the deed, so the sentimental value may be limited to the signature, if any. The legal value, of course, would reside in the copy of the deed filed with the county court. John