Dear Cousin Vicki - apparently you and my wife, Betty Jean Clark of Glenford, Ohio, aka BJ, have Thomas and Hannah as common grandparents. That is wonderful. You are the first of their surviving descendants, except for immediate family, that we have had the pleasure of meeting. Let us get acquainted. Thomas and Hannah are my wife's g-g-granparents. If you are of her generation then you are third-cousins - if you are younger than BJ then you are once or twice removed. At a recent luncheon with my Lauve first-cousins, omne of my cousins said, "Thank God for cousins." As you get into the last half century of your life on this earth, and have no parents, no aunts, no uncles - that comment is very meaningful. And of course for those of us writing about our ancestors there is always the chance that a cousin will know something we don't. Here is a bit of what we know. We have written a book about Thomas and Hannah's Perry County descendants. We determined in 1984 to write whatever we could find and add a bit of historicaly correct fiction to their story. We wrote for our children and close cousins.We have eight grandparents and we have writen a book about six of them. We have all the data we are going to get for the seventh, one of my grandparents, and we are putting it together. The eighth is a Campbell grandmother - wife of Elmer Elsworth Clark, grandson of Thomas and Hannah. The bare bones of the Campbell line have long been documented back to the first of the clan to enter Guernsey County in 1804, from memory. We have added info on a couple of spouses. But that last book will give us a chance to reintroduce some early Ohio History - The Clark story was our first. It has several serious errors in it. We did some guessing and did not properly indicate that we were guessing. As we went along we came to realize that what we write is not solely for our children's entertainement but that we must clearly indicate when we are making an assumption without reasonable documentation. (If one only publishes what can be documented by a first source - there would be very little published - and since census eumerators and ministers who could not spell very well - much of that so called documented datga would be in accurate. We have no documented facts concerning Thomas and Hannah before they came to Madison Township about 1833, son James was born in Ohio 1834. Let us find out what you may have - have you seen " Portrait and Biographical Album of Champaign, Illinois - 1887." Celia G. Snyder - [email protected] sent that to us several years ago. Thomas died August 9, 1854 and is buried in Mt. Perry. There are two dates of birth. Birth location not given. For some reason unknown to us Hannah sold the farm and took her minor children to Champaign, Illinois. She never married but was a very succesfull farmer. Seems immposible - we take our hat off to that lady. But why did she not stay Ohio? Her married son John Milton was quite well off and her married daughter Margaret Melick was also quite well off. We have speculated but leave that for an other time. OK.. I have some wonderful Lake Michigan Coho Salmon - caught on my 83rd Birthday, june 30, and my grandson's birthday - four miles off downtown Chicago. They have been iced down and frozen and are as fresh as the minute we caught them. I am going to call myh daughter in Winettka and tell her what I am doing- then I am going to smoke most of the batch and grill enough for supper. Cousin Vicky - let us hear from you. Vanessa is a jewel. Our very best personal regarda Hal and BJ we live in Chapel Hill, NC. send me you telephone number and I will call you some weekend...