>Ian: > >Good day to you. I am living in New York and have been building a solid >knowledge base about Brownlee's in the U.S. and in Scotland. > >I picked up your name and e-mail from rootsweb and am responding to your >latest contribution. >First, I am interested in obtaining a copy or two of the ubiquitous >'Brownlee book.' > >Second, my long term goal for my genealogy has been to write a book for my >family and I am interested in your thoughts on publishing a second Brownlee >treatise. > >Third, I too have entertained fleeting thoughts of financing a restoration >of Torfoot. We should discuss your thoughts on this matter as well. >Several options for raising money are available.< > >Drop me a line here so that we may get to know each other. > >Mark Brownlee Mark, G'day mate! (just a bit of colloquialism) Thanks for your email, from the greeting it's pretty obvious that I am in Australia. I am married with three children, Robert (21), Janine (20), Matthew (18) and a grand daughter, Chloe (7 mths). We live in the Blue Mountains, 100km west of Sydney in Katoomba which relys heavily on the tourist trade (2 million visitors per year) My background is in the Printing Industry and up until 6 months ago, I had my own Printing business (Brownlee Printing). We are still in the industry working on a commission basis and setting up a marketing business, both in Australia and Internationally. I am also touching on marketing Web Sites for a friend of mine, who owns Leisurenet. As far as genealogy goes, the interest has been there since I was about 16, when I contributed to the first edition of "The Brownlee Family" book for Allan Lindsay Arnold Brownlee. Since then - over the next 30 years (which makes me 46) I have had bursts of enthusiasm when time was to permit. In that time I have written three books, 1st a revised edition of "The Brownlee Family" which was published at a fairly stressful time of my life. I had been assisting Lindsay in research for the book and helping him put it together. People paid up front for the book to finance it and then Lindsay passed away. Before he died, he asked me to carry on the work for him and have it published. We had commenced our printing business 2 years earlier and I was working about 80 hours a week, so you can imagine the pressure of compiling charts putting together research that Lindsay had started as well as undertaking the physical printing of it and pacifying some impatient contributors threatening legal action - what a nightmare. But on a positive note, the book was published and everyone was happy and the feeling of a job well done was overwhelming. My second book was in 1988 "The Brownlee Story", on my own immediate family and the third a compilation of research I had done in the Cambusnethan Parish entitled "The Brownlees of Scotland" vol 1 - extracts from Cambusnethan Parochial Register 1634 -1854. So thats a bit of me. In regards to your admirable goal of doing a book on your family - I would recommend it, it is certainly a great sense of satisfaction to hold that first copy. Maybe submitting research for our joint cause and perhaps becoming a joint editor will give you the expertise to do a book on your own family later on. It would certainly lay a great foundation to do so. As far as to the financing the restoration of Torfoot, put your thoughts to Kay and on Rootsweb where others can contribute. The more feedback I feel the better. I noticed on a reply to Kay, you said you would volunteer to organise the planning of the trip in 2000. That's awesome! I like the idea of media coverage. I think it best for each of us to make a list of the possibilities and put it to the group for a response. I think the wilder the better because sometimes we may not say something because it sounds over the top, when in fact it isn't really. Best wishes Ian