Hello, Spelunkers! MDWW65 has a great idea. I,too, believe all the really early Virginia Cave families were related, probably closely. MDWW65's idea could probably be carried out throught the existing web site(s). I would suggest a cutoff date of 1790 (the first census) to avoid having too many records to consider. We could always extend the date if necessary. Regards, Ed Troutman (twice from Benj Cave Sr and Hannah Bledsoe of Spottsylvania/Orange Co, VA) ------------------ Reply Separator -------------------- Originally From: MDWW65@aol.com Subject: [CAVE] Cave suggestion Date: 02/27/2002 06:31pm I have a suggestion that might help a lot of Cave researchers. I have a number of Cave references, and I see new ones posted all the time on this forum. It seems that most of the early Virginia Caves, for example, are probably of the same family. Yet the info we all have is posted in various places. Is it possible that we could set aside a place on the Web..perhaps someone's already existing webpage, that can have actual cave references say pre 1750, or 1800? It would be better to have a cut off date like that than to get endless Cave references later on. The references would only be actual, primary sources and records, i.e. land grants, early birth records, marriages, Bible records, etc. This wouldnt really cover that many people, but it might provide missing pieces to the puzzle. For example, we recently hashed out the fact that the John Cave who married Elizabeth Travers could not have been the father of the Mary Cave who married John Echols, ancestors of many people on this list. And this despite the fact that there are scores of websites having John and Elizabeth as Mary's father. By posting early records with exact dates in a chronological order, we could easily show the dates are wrong. Thats why I also think it would be unwise to go much past 1750, where we start having a proliferation of Caves. What do people think of this idea? If someone can host this site or this page on their site, I know I can provide a number of early references. Then whoever wants to add could check of the expanding list, avoid duplication, etc. ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237