All agree with historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese that you must study women's relationships with men and with other women to "get at" the woman of interest. In other words, research everyone associated or connected with your woman ancestor. All also agree that you need to seek original records whenever possible rather than relying on published abstracts and transcriptions of records or published genealogies. In many cases you may never find that magic document that says, "I leave to my daughter, Ann," or "Samuel and Martha (Richards) Montgomery are the parents of Penelope," which proves her parentage. Sometimes it is necessary to build a case based on the evidence you have gathered. In other words, make an inference about the unknown based on the known. Let's look at two cases to see how this works... ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com