Hello all. Thanks for the recent interests and posts about ancestors whose recoords might be found in adjacent states or places which might at first seem improbable. I'm one whose ancestors come from the DE, MD, PA, and NJ regios around the Delaware River and Aby, extending into New castle Co, DE, in Kent Co, MD, probably Cecil Co MD, as well as in various counties in PA and in southern NJ. Mine (direct) never did migrate west of the Alleghenies nor very far north or south of this area. Here is a good resource for people like me: I am in the middle of an intensive reading of wills abstracts of Philadelphia (County) PA from much of the beginning of the eighteenth century. During most of that time, borders and jurisdiction of lands in a wide area around the Delaware River/Bay area were still in dispute, and counties outside of Philly were not yet established. Of course, the state lines at that time did not exist either. These wills abstracts show many instances of people residing in Maryland (the spellings are usually odd), as well as some people residing in what is now NJ and also seem like must be Delaware. These records also sometimes reflect back of the original home country of the individual, or to another region in what were the colonies. A careful reading of these abstracts will show old Swedish ancestry of desc. of those who first came to the DE and NJ areas beginning about 1638. They have colonial Dutch who also settled in DE, NJ, and PA, probably also in MD. This series in published on Rootsweb --here's a link. Change the letter designation in the URL just before the .txt to find another page: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/philadelphia/wills/willabstrbkl.txt The main URL is here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/pafiles.htm It has also come to my attention that there were many people who lived on one side of the Delaware River/Bay or the other, who worshipped at churches on the other side. I'll be back soon with ancestors of my grandmother whose families came from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Hope to connect with some of you all. Having a bit of trouble with the modem and/or with the eletricity here (yes we live IN a city & all), so this mail is not as neat as I would like, but i better send this. I'm doing my best to work on this huge project and will be back soon. best wishes, Liz J