This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ikJ.2ACIB/1540.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Thanks John. As a matter of fact, I have been in contact with her. We were comparing notes a few months ago and she and I both agree that it's possible that John's father may not even have been a Copeland, we just didn't know. She, too, was looking for some documents that would give the name of John's father, but so far, no luck. And yes, I did come across the Oberlin site some time ago, and it has provided me with excellent documentation of some of the families that settled there. There is extensive work on John A. Copeland, of course, and I have included a lot of the info I found there in my files. It also helped me in my research of Delilah Evans, whose ancestry I had been investigating. I have both Copelands and Evans in my family tree, and have several marriages between the two lines. I am fairly certain that Delilah Evans was the daughter of Charles Evans and Frances Hunt who were both living in Orange County in the early 1800's. They are included in my online tree. I did not know that John Sr. was supposed to have had 2 siblings, that is very interesting. I now wonder if the Thomas I found living in Wake County was John's brother? That Thomas was born abt 1790 and first showed up in the 1840 census records, while the Isaac Copeland whom I have supposed was his father was last in the same location in 1830. Thomas had married 2 Evans sisters, in 1821 and 1837 and between them have found about 5 children, the males of which I was able to follow for the most part. Strangely enough, one of the sons seems to have been a Wilson Copeland, which I haven't found much else about after 1850; one of Delilah Evans brothers was named Wilson Evans, who also moved to Oberlin with John Copeland. I have been trying to find the origins of Isaac Copeland, a free man of color, because I have suspected that he may have been related to Cato/Kader Copeland, b. 1758 in Halifax Co.NC, whom I believe was the ancestor of the free Copelands in Halifax & Warren ! County,NC. My Copelands are Benjamin and Joseph, brothers who both were born in Halifax Co. and whose children intermarried with each other as well as other free colored people of Warreh & Halifax Counties. Most of my findings on these families are in my online tree at: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dwilliams-1&id=I253 I haven't added some of my later data yet, which includes the fact that Frederick had died on Feb. 5, 1916 in Hanover, Indiana, and the fact that he had been married. The census records are kind of ambivilent where Frederick is concerned because they have him listed as living with his sister named Mary in 1900, yet the same woman appears in 1910 as his wife, which is even stranger because his wife had died in 1896. I have also followed their son, William, who was a lawyer and a policeman, and murdered in Arkansas in 1885. He had a wife and 3 children, which I'm still also researching. Yes, I would very much like to know what you may have on the identities of John Copeland Sr.'s siblings, they could be a key to some of the puzzles I have encountered about this family. Deloris