I'm pretty excited. Thanks to Bob Norris and this mail list, I was able to get copies of diaries written by TWO travelers on the same wagon train as my Jacob WEAVER! The Kansas Historical Society LIbrary copied the diary of Henry J. Shombre for me. It starts 19 Mar 1849 in Indiana and ends at Fort Laramie, 17 June 1849. The Indiana State Library was wonderful to work with. The librarian sent 1934 newspaper articles containing excerpts from the Shombre diary and an article from the Kansas State Historical Quarterly. The librarian compared the Shombre diary with another written by Dr. John Prichet and found that the dates matched and the two writers mentioned each other. She copied the first 83 pages of Prichet's diary for me--up to the time he has reached the gold fields. I'm going to wait a little while, then write again asking for all of the pages of his time in CA. (Prichet returned home in 1851, and his diary apparently covers the entire time.) I just wanted to share this success story and my thanks to you all! Elaine Waiters [email protected]