Halito All: I have been taking care of some personal business and was quite pleased and very surprised with the lively discussion. However, I was quite concerned that a topic that I introduced on 7/13 would cause so much conflict. The question I asked back on 7/13 concerned John Harper (Hopiah). I was trying to discover if I could use the name Hopiah in some way to discover other ancestors. Dusty pointed out that with the name Tubbee, which I used as an example, It was a name that was used to honor a person for having killed an enemy in battle. Of course we all know there were many ways a Choctaw could have acquired a name. However, there is the case when a family or clan had a particular responsibility and their name was a particular designation of this. I wonder if in the case of Hopiah, Leader or Mound Builder, if this could be the case. As you can see, you cannot answer the genealogical question, without also asking and answering some historical, cultural,religious, etc, etc. questions. Now to say that you must then split the various parts of this discussion and put it on different sites, would dilute the aim and purpose of the discussion to the point that it would have no value. Therefore I think it makes sense to keep the discussion where it started. Not to mention the fact that you would lose all sense of continuity, logic and reason, by splitting up all of the various elements of the discussion. Well I have said what I had to say. I just know what kind of discussion I need to involve people of knowledge in to discover my ancestors. After all, that is the point! Imafo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com