In a message dated 12/31/2010 7:17:17 A.M. Central Standard Time, pamtessier@sympatico.ca writes: The likelihood that it will break down brickwalls in your main families is very small but it is a barrel of fun and will introduce you to names, families and history you never imagined were in your family tree. And as an exercise in researching other areas it can't be beat! Actually do this broke down a whole mess of walls in both Canada and in the U.S. While working with my Canadian cousins I would note that someone married someone with the same surname and ask if they were related. Finally they got smart and answered the questions by sending me every spousal tree that had already been done and as I entered them I found that many of the families had married, intermarried and intermarried again all amongst each other and ended up with a lot of info that I did not have before getting these spousal trees, info that fit into the main tree I was working on. Another example here in the U.S. I found that my mother's nephew had married a gal who had a cousin who had married my father's second cousin. Again, because of a spousal tree where I happened to connect with another cousin of the nephew's wife. And again I had more info for both my mother's tree and that of my father's that I had not found previously. I have also spent years researching families because I had a gut feeling that they had to be related but couldn't prove it. In one case, I was sure that the primary man was a brother to my grandfather but was never able to find a death record to prove it. As he was born in Bohemia as was my grandfather, I didn't know what I was going to do. Then I posted to the area giving an outline of that family and was contacted by 2 sisters in the Navy in California. This was their ggrandfather. Shortly thereafter one of the gals was discharged and came back to MN and I met her at the county courthouse to again try and find the death record. Her mother showed up also, bearing an obit. The man had died in a neighboring county at the Mayo clinic! So I ran over there, found his death record and was able to prove the connection. Another family I researched for years was just proven to be connected to us also, not too long ago, thanks to the help of someone from this list. I had been in contact with family members from that tree over the years but no one had any idea whether the original man was from Ireland or England and census info listed both over time. Thanks to someone on this list who checked the new IGI website and found his death date for us we have been able to prove that he was a brother to my ggrandfather and that family tree has just doubled. And this was another maternal line, my mother's mother's line. Once I joined them I also ended up with more info on another line because of more intermarriages. Another time I made a trip to Saskatchewan to check out the spousal line of one of my father's aunts who had married and then immigrated there. While stopping at the local mortuary I showed the secretary a book that had been published about my mother's grandmother's family to show her what I was interested in doing with my father's line and it ended up her mother was in that book! She was distantly related to me thru my mother's line! Annie in Minnesota