{[Pressed the "button" before re-formatting again!! Do you find these machines as much of a pain as I do???]} [I again FAILED to re-format this item for "plain-text" posting to this List, as it is VERY important for me to be "clear" it is here done so together w/ minor "typos" corrected for further clarity, thanks for your patience...] In several follow-up postings, I will be correcting what I KNOW to be errors in the Disbrow-L Archives concerning 17thc. vital records of the Eltisley Disbrows. But first please "suffer through" the following commentary about what has just happened to uncover these very significant errors! Now that the dust has settled, one thing is clear from the recent "unsettling" debate: THE PAST DISBROW-L ARCHIVES ARE FACTUALLY WRONG AS TO SOME ESSENTIALS OF THE 17TH c. ELTISLEY DISBROW "VITAL RECORDS!" Carl Dunn's very admirable attempt at re-interpretation from them should NOT be held against him by anyone (in fact, he is the only one who has made a truly very noble effort to keep-up with me)! He cannot be blamed for poor reference material in the archives, nor can I be. But then WHY do I seem now to be the only member of this List who knows exactly that there are flaws in that VR reference material from the archives (& when I have barely consulted them, no less?)? BECAUSE I have, in fact, been doing my "homework" back in the "home-land" (England). Unfortunately too, this is also just as any of you individually must do, instead of now relying on me, or this "List," for virtually ANY matter of particular VITAL concern to your own family lines. Further: I have been extremely generous to this "List," whereas it has not always been so with me. I have recently been publicly insulted here and privately so last year, off-List...with, I'm sure, still much dissatisfaction among some small minority of you as to my own personal "style." That style, purposely & calculatedly, attempts to put a human face on my experience with this "anonymous" medium of the internet, while it is also very directly opposed to some commonplace "genny-web" communicating conventions. Those conventions, I believe, are actually quite harmful and can lead to the endless perpetuation of mistakes in the "black-hole" of the anonymous internet (esp. when "debate" is purposely avoided by the routine use of such conventions). Obviously, all of us must treat EVERYTHING we receive via this Disbrow forum in exactly the same way as we do whatever is received via the LDS "IGI"...(ie: as deeply suspect & requiring confirmation!). So, what are those insistent/persistent genny "conventions" which have lead to past insult of my style (& undoubted frustration for some of you with that style)? Simply that of insistently providing only "sound-bites" of factoid information, most often while carefully avoiding virtually ANY longer contextual interpretation of it whatsoever. That is not, in my estimation, helpful to what I am attempting to do by using general narrative HISTORY itself as, in fact, another very useful, and in this instance, DIRECT sort of "proof" as to the identity of my otherwise very mysterious CT ancestor: Thomas Disbrow (progenitor of my American line). I also believe that only just posting "genny" conventional "factoids" are not what this more intimate gathering of Disbrow researchers should only ever be about (though perhaps I'm wrong about that one!). One year ago, I wrote here that I was "confused" by one person's "genny-bite" pairing-up of two separate Eltisley Disbrow lines, meanwhile another long-experienced researcher privately commented to me that these were inaccurate (obviously based on her reading of the authors of the 1976 and 1986 studies of the English antecedents, copies of which she much later very willingly shared with me, at her own great expense). That far too brief "paired" listing (for me) did NOT help me without contextual explanation, and yet my stating my "confusion" alone also did NOT then lead to what we now see was a very necessary debate, a debate which has now revealed appaling flaws in the DISBROW-L Archived "VR" material (which material is especially difficult to access via this archive without first recalling an e-mail address of the presenter, & since it was posted in 5 very lengthy installments at great effort on her part).... I realize most good people simply do NOT wish to "stick their necks out" (esp. NOW, unfortunately, after this most recent debate inevitably!), only to have it "chopped off" by some debate whatsoever, ...Unfortunately, that is the very necessary risk we all must take as we try so tirelessly to get at the root TRUTH of our various questions (& it can be taken far more safely so in posting here, in this far more intimate forum wihtin the larger "black hole" of the net)! The "root truth," at the moment, seems to be that basic Disbrow "VR" information in the archives has been deeply flawed, apparently all along (though who knows when & how since it was presented here not at "second-hand" but rather at 4th or even 5th hand, apparently)! In my own estimation then, those genny-web"conventions" (about which I have been harshly, if rarely off-List, criticized for violating) has, in several instances such as one year ago, now lead to a lot of wasted time while risking endless perpetuation of gross errors in the internet "echo-chamber" concerning mistaken presumptions. It is emphatically NOT my own responsibility to correct the mistaken "homework" of others as posted here (even WHEN I can ever discover that such "homework" may be mistaken). It is also emphatically NOT my responsibility to post virtually a thing to this List at all, of course (and whatever I may be able to contribute to our Disbrow "history" can certainly be read too after my book project is completed and published, as I certainly expect it to be eventually!). Those of you who are irritated by my style, can and should use your "delete button" whenever encountering my name on your computers for this List (just as I do the majority of time for items I'm not interested in, since I am certainly NOT the repository for all things DISBROW and my specific areas of interest are very limited and ever increasingly focused).... Further, my recent debater initiated our debate by first publicly requesting whether I had any intention of "publishing" my findings of Disbrow wills, or will-abstracts, on this List. I responded by saying I will post an index of Disbrow wills from the Consistory of Ely Probate Records, which I still intend to do. But quite such a "public" request to a normally generous person as I think I am (...but also a very busy one!), when perhaps it could have been more discreetly tendered off-List in private (since we had just completed an innocuous, very brief private correspondence), can only put me into an embarrassing public position and one probably designed expressly to elicit that information by so. I repeat, it is necessary for all of you not to rely on "second-hand information or transcripts, but to do the necessary individual "homework" in the home-land as may be necessary for you (concerning which there are certainly various convenient ways of doing that "homework" without ever going to England, I have posted at least one CAmbridge address for wills already). This request on-List has been unfair to me! My position (&, yes, to some extent I have asked for it!) has now become a truly embarrassing one which the following e-mail, just received off-List, certainly does underscore (I received others just like it before our debate, & not simply due to my debater's enforced public request of me!). The following innocent sender shall remain anonymous on-LIST (publicly): "Hi! It's ...., I was wondering if you can make copies of what you have and send it to me. All the information that you have would be very helpful for my aunt and I since we have started looking into the Disbrow family ancestors. Alot of the info that I have been reading that you posted is about my family members as well. Please email me at .... Thank you so much." Personally, I think the above is actually rather moving and "sweet," ...while also quite SAD for being obviously impossible for me to fulfill (unfortunately, there can be NO substitute for, or short-cut in, doing your own homework). So saying all the foregoing, I now intend over the next few days to "publish" here as much of the 17th century Eltisley Disbrow vital records I have (& which have been of direct concern to me & my book-project), just as I collected these from two sources in England: 1. The "Cambridge Central Library" (its official name in downtown Cambridge, England), AND, #2. from Mike Sawyer, Eltisley village historian in December 2001. They are most interestingly entitled on the Library micro-films as: "Official Bishop's Transcripts." They conform in accuracy to the separately collected hand-printed VR material from the Eltisley village historian: Mike Sawyer. I have NOT yet seen the original 17th century documents from which these two "transcriptions" are themselves derived, but I hope to do so on my follow-up trip to England this fall. Thank you for your indulgence of all above matters. STSquires