Hi All, Below I'm going to share an email I just sent to my kids.....and then I'll explain its significance. Just musing on how strange life is.... When we traveled back and forth from St. Louis to our house in the clearing in Arcadia, little did we realize that we were traveling the same route as your 6 Great Grandfather Antoine Valentin Degruÿsverloin..... who was stationed at Fort de Chartres across the Mississippi from the same general latitude as Bonne Terre.... And when we ate at Rosener's, we were just to the east of what may have been one of the lead mines he operated. His journals talk about traveling in what is now the Bismark area.... west of Rosener's and north of Ironton..... He traveled the area around the confluence of the Big River and the Meramec.... he traveled the headwaters of the St. Francis River...the same river which we drove over to get to the "farm" -- remember the nickname we had for it "Evangeline". His [Grandpere Antoine Valentine Degruÿsverloin's words]: "The following day [April 7, 1743] we crossed that river [i.e. a branch of the St. Francis] on a small raft. At a distance of a musket shot from the bank, my guides told me to dig in and that I would find a vein. I did this and one foot down I found some of the stone or marcasite that is enclosed in the small sacks labeled "St. Antoine's Mine......" [Degruy's narrative continues on...] So he named the area after himself and that helps to identify him even though his name is mispelled as De Guise in the records. The Moody Blues had it right: Isn't life just so very strange!? Mom OK.....explanation I discovered in this article written by Carl J. Ekberg [entitled: "Antoine Valentin de Gruy: Early Missouri Explorer"] that not only is there is in Paris a listing of the soldiers who were sent to Louisiana that may have Antoine's name on it [So a connection between Europe and America --] I've ordered a photocopy and will let you know when it arrives, but there is also a journal written by our GGGGG Grandfather himself! [Now that is really exciting! I've ordered that too... but it will probably be in French, in script, and hard to read.... ] Some of it was translated in Ekberg's article. As I read the portions he included, I began to notice some very familiar geographical references! Our family used to have a little house in a clearing in Arcadia, Missouri, south west of St. Louis by about 2 hours.... [further southwest than where our Valentin was located]. We called it a "farm" which it wasn't and we nicknamed it "Evangeline." We eventually sold it because it was just too far to drive to be economical. Anyway, we'd usually break up the trip there by stopping for smorgasbord at Rosener's in the general vacinity of Bonne Terre [which is pretty directly west of where Antoine was stationed on the other side of the Mississippi]. To the west of Rosener's was a lead mine [near Potosi and maybe one of the several Antoine was working]; further south and west of Farmington was Bismark [mentioned in the article]... and interweaving all through this area is the St. Francois river. Now, perhaps, you can better understand the email.... as well as the weird feeling I get when I realize how very close we were to our Grandfather's travels.... Wonder if he died so young because of all that contact with lead.... the article said he was probably in his 40's. I'll let you know when I get the photocopies of the original documents. Renee