RE: Happy HALLOWEEEEEN....Mercy Disbrow was convicted of witchcraft, 28 Oct 1692. Anyone who hates my "style," etc., should plse skip this bit....So what does "September 11" have to do with it!? I guess this List would be a pretty "dead" place, Halloween or not, without me around to liven it up!! It's been a real joy past couple weeks to turn on my computer and NOT see any Disbrow-L hostilities, or other nonsense, forcing yet another round of ugly response re: "factual equivocations," etc... Unfortunately, it seems there's NO end to it with this particular "hobbyists" forum I do fear. While it may have been an enjoyable "debate" for some "lurkers," it became otherwise for its 2 principal participants. Since I live at a university community where "vigorous" (read rigorous!) debate is very normal and expected, I cannot appreciate the unaccountable hostility I encountered debating extremely important issues here. As promised some while ago (before my lovely, now extended "Columbus Day vacation" from this List), I will be posting, immediately following, the final two legs of the Eltisely vital records (marriages/burials), neither of which has EVER been my obligation to provide to you, of course. I expect this somewhat onerous effort will be properly appreciated by the great majority of you, with or without further personal concerns over my otherwise "odd" habits (which, unfortunately for some, even trifocals could not help them to appreciate/ignore). These "new" items are posted separately here for better archiving, along with minor "clean-up" information I once intended for your pertinent benefit (I will not be posting after this Friday). I also once intended more for you, but with these few items I take semi-permenant leave of this List (not to return unless posting to the ARCHIVES, which is unlikely since I am content to let my book-project be my future archive). I simply do NOT have time to waste any longer on this List, dealing with sometimes hostile demands upon it, together with truly ingrate discourtesies/strategems from some few minority among you (I have, for example, been personally slandered as being somehow in need of "professional help," by a member OFF-List recently, among other discourtesies while similarly enduring irrelevant hostile "stylistic" comments also over one year ago OFF-List! So, what is up with some few of you characters then (rhetorical Q. only!)?? ...The message I guess: Do NOT mess with some elderly hobbyists and their particular brand of fun! So, "grow-up" already....And yes, I too have my own occasional "senior moments"!). This List also holds few further "charms" considering that also debated "gen" convention of a far too careless, non-contextual posting "style" by some of the more vocal among you "internet jockies" (who actually bother to post), & who can appear to presume far too much from too little (all without any required/expected explanation). As I have also said: some of you seem to rely far too exclusively upon this flawed medium for collecting/trafficking in gen information (apparently as your SOLE source, amazingly enuf?). Therefore, I request that you NOT force me to "unsubscribe" via further entangling vicious debate or ingrate discourtesies regarding this or any other issue following. In fact, I don't wish to carry on further debate via this forum, period... My thanks to Brian Disbury, a friend of Carl Dunn, for correcting a rather significant recent error of his own, concerning the so-called Elizabeth "HATLEY" reference which he claimed to have seen directly from the Bishop's transcripts of Eltisley VR as a recent collector of this information in Cambridgeshire no less. This particular incorrect reference was never in the Eltisely VR I also collected at Cambridge, though I cannot account for any "professional" reference he may have mixed-up from his own notes about this which he has now corrected. I do suspect he may have picked up this mistakne info indirectly from the LDS internet "echo-chamber," where he has told me off-List this info is also posted under a mistaken "1605/1607" listing for the marriage of the Elder James Disbrow(?), rather than a marriage for the more probable/mysterious James "junior" (also of Eltisley and the "Elder's" contemporary). Such a "mix-up" of errors certainly "echos" what I warned about during our debate, both with respect to this medium/internet "echo chambers," as well as w/ respect to far too brief, non-contextual posting of so-called self-evident "lists." Such respectable past Disbrowe researchers as Eddis Johnson & Harold B. Disbrowe also listed this particular, VERY SAME curious error in collaborating on a "published" work way back in 1986 (which I have), where this echoed error may have likely originated (perhaps)... I will deal with other serious errors in the collaboration of these two authors in my once-promised (during the "debate") but never delivered surprising "follow-up" which I labelled then: "The Other Shoe." Ironically too, the two flawed authors based much of their somewhat mistaken research on the very same Bernice Disbrow VR material (based on Bishop's Transcripts) which was also, I believe, basis of Barbara Hutchins sometimes mistaken posting to the Archive in 2000 (so just HOW could the earlier 1986 authors have gotten so much more wrong from that, ....check out my surprisng follow-up post: "The Other Shoe Drops," which post was also promised all-along during our debate!). WE also know that these same 17th c. Bishops Transcripts themselves are just an "office copy" of original Eltisley PARISH records which apparently no longer exist (as recently pointed out by Brian Disbury too). Disbury's correction of his mistaken "Hatley" reference was ALL the more important to me since I had flatly claimed during our debate that NO such "Hatley" surname appears anywhere in the Eltisley vital records I collected (and there are very few such references even in the far more extensive OVER records). This remains the case for my material from the Cambridge Central Library, as you may readily now see from my previously "promised" postings, immediately to follow (I, therefore, am concealing NOTHING!). It was also insinuated by someone else (forcing my I remark about this during debate) that I had sinister reasons for avoiding the promised posting-up of this final leg of the Eltisley VR (burials/marriages). This is info I had innocently enough already promised to post at some point for you (I am NOW doing so,...lucky you!). Any "internet jockey" who mistrusts anyone else's motives to such an extent then simply has some obligation to secure such information independently for him/herself, instead of just riding the backs of those so apparently mistrusted at second-hand. This is exactly what I did with respect to the "flawed" Eltisley VR material in the Archives posted in 2000 (after some minor questions arose then over who originally collected this material). I do wish to avoid further rancor/unaccountable hostility which I all-too-unavoidably encountered in our far too bi-polar debate! Regarding that "bi-polarity:" just where were the REST of you "lurkers" during it? Even without resource materials to draw upon (which some of you certainly do have very extensively), you've certainly had brains enough for assessing/debating & commenting insightfully, at least... Such multi-faceted participation might have avoided "polarized" rancor... The question remains also: WHY am I about the only one now with "vital" & very "new" resource information, readily collected in England, as so-called "expert" for some. So, how come none of the rest of you surfers knew of the Shire Hall "treasure house" of Disbrow wills (my promised index of which to be posted immediately following, just as I also had promised!)?? This readily available resource is obviously pertinent to essential questions about our own Connecticut Disbrows, ...and concerning which there are still very many outstanding questions, some readily resolvable, no doubt. I certainly do NOT subscribe to the notion that all our English antecedents are simply a mess of mass "confusion," though they can certainly be "amusingly" so as witch's gold, here today/gone tomorrow... Perhaps it's because I have seen quite so much detail from other sources beyond this medium, including history books, while building an absolutely unavoidable mountain of obvious evidence from my little "mole hills" (and have ALSO used "new," highly respectable methods now embraced by academics,... even if these are still alien to some of you "older" internet gens; see below), such that I am all that much more AMAZED how some of the very obvious has never before been picked-up by past Disbrow researchers (including relational interactions among own CT Disbrow clans)! Are so many of you, then, perhaps quite so dependent upon (addicted to?) this rather "lazy" medium now of the internet, & as a SOLE resource as some have indicated....& isn't that a bit risky, even pathetic? Sorry to spoil your fun, and YES there is obviously much of great value on the internet, especially on official gen-web sites where I too have found invaluable information often, ....but let's get real now, eh! This medium can never be tha ALL & everything in research, though it holds a great "potential" still for providing essetntial & convenient cross-oceanic links for detailed gen information which has too long been absent in New England genealogy, much to the disaster of that "hoary" genealogy & history in my estimation!... Why haven't any of you more aggressively pursued further identifying information about our "Arthur Holbridge," either among the London St. Stephen's/Coleman Street crowd (the richer members of whom not only founded New Haven but ALSO helped fund Mass Bay Colony, which is exacly where Holbridge shows up in Shurtleff earlier in 1630's)?? Why never research intriguing angles, for example, about Arthur's wife "Susanna" (a "Holsworth" perhaps, or is this just Wintrhop's confusion over "Holbridge"---while so curiously identical to later Eltisley Disbrowe in-laws of Holworthy---I DON"T BELIEVE IN COINCIDENCES THAT EASILY!! Do you??). SHE may hold a provocative clue or 2 about their identity, & close relation to the Rev. Jones (also at St. Stephen's Coleman Street once, didn't you know!). And how about that still somewhat mysterious Rev. John Jones himself, who knew so many extremely prominent "divines," ...and who even Gov. John Winthrop, Jr. once invited to be his own pastor at New London (---plus also see the fine work of Frederick C. Hart of Guilford, CT from the Jan 1996 TAG for other pick-up clues!!)? While I will most certainly never again encourage debate in this forum, that debate never, in my estimation, should have been allowed to became a spectator's sport of "battle" between just two people only, ...to be "enjoyed" like some TV football game by the rest of you "lurkers." This too goes to the heart of my problem, not just with "unprofessional" debate conduct, but with this entire lazy medium itself. Further, I can only believe the lack of appreciation for my "style" has been due to something more than whether I happen to over-use upper-case in my posts (have you seen how many college kids think it's cool to string words together without any caps in e-mails at all, & barely any punctuation---are they just lazy or concealing their language ignorance---"Miss Manners" just came out with a book criticising the internet for corrupting good manners while it encourages a lack of normal interpersonal respectful forms of address;...other media commentators indicate internet e-mails even encourage a far too-ready hostility in their far too easy/quick responses...). I suspect "hostility" to my style though has much more to do with my "new" methods & means of approach to some very old gen problems. Let me make clear here that my methods are NOT about mystical "coincidences," as some of you far less circumspect types might think from my very "fun" & delightful little booklet called "ARE THERE WITCHES?" (long posted on Mike Disbrow's web site, and which certainly does deal with that aspect of fun gen research too). My methods include very clear, obviously factual approaches which are even now being used/taught by academicians at our state universities (I now live, grew-up, at the University of Connecticut, though am NOT employed by it: I have a BA in history from Williams College and have been a very successful, highly respected government analyst at state/municipal level, am now free-lance writer/research consultant). This method includes what I have called "relational analysis" which takes a much broader approach to genealogy than simply tracing back through one family line in linear fashion over time. MY dimension of "attack" for certain intractable "gen" & historical problems is NOT just linear back thorugh time, but attempts to take a "snap-shot" of a certain time and then spreads out genealogy/history research, especially via the often ignored female marriage inter-relationships, via circumstantial issues of history/location to discover various PATTERNS of association for any one person or family during that particular time-frame "snapshot" (YES, "circumstantial" evidence alone usually does win court cases). This method will certainly NOT be unfamiliar to many of you. Though, I realize that this approach ( which I have sometimes mis-leadingly labelled "name magic") is not only very new to some of you, but is probably even entirely alien and offensive to more than the compulsive "list collectors" among you. Unfortunately, my approach to genealogy is NOT as a kid at Halloween trying to shove as many ancestors as possible into the basket (I could care less about fifth cousins or meaningless lists, and we are not "GOD" to so arrogantly play dice with our ancestor's familiy relations---Believe me at Halloween: they won't like us much for that sort of careless disrespect). AS I have said before, I could NOT concieve of doing what so many of you people can do so well, and so often have superbly published, namely of playing out the cross-word puzzle of your own particular spreading family lines of gen connection, over time, & to the endless fifth cousin no less, even while sometimes refusing to put flesh back on their old bones by looking at a history book or two. Perhaps because I have seen a particularly unique Connecticut connection of my own surname, "Squires" (more commonplace surname than Disbrow!), with that of my own Disbrow ancestors, & not just during Mercy Disbrow's 1692 witch trial, but even going back over the past 400 years with odd/unexpected interweavings that still baffle me, compelling me ever deeper into this (a too common problem among the genealogists' addiction!), ...well, I have very necessarily then taken the approach that I long have. This approach, you must admit, has sometimes yielded "startling," FACTUALLY proven, past results which I have reported here & which I have every reason to believe have deserved your far greater appreciation of my methods. It is true that I also have some real concern for the behavioral direction & overuse of this medium of the internet. I will not constantly re-iterate those here, further raising hobbyist "hackles" in defense of a too compulsively "cherished" new toy. Nevertheless, I do want to tell you a story of my short four day trip to Cambridge last December which probably WON'T be in my book. Speaking of "September 11,".... when I was in Cambridge I took a fascinating tour with a reverend pastor named "McCauley" who was operating out of the ancient Templar round church there, a major tourist attraction. This gentleman looked just like he stepped off one of those portraits, chiseled-features & all, hanging in the ancient halls of his own beloved university (he's an alum!). At the end of our tour, taken mostly by American college students, he stopped in front of a life-size statue of a seated Francis Bacon (the father of modern scientific method) and announced that not only was Bacon mistaken in creating the "non-spiritual monster of dissociative scientific thinking today" (which has, nevertheless I might add, given us the very magical & marvelous, but also flawed, tool of the internet via its own early trafficking in just scientific "lists" of statistical information), ....but so too was America itself now very mistaken, he said, in spreading a world-wide form of incipient "techno fascism" (his words!!). Was he just an anti-techno "Luddite" then?? Whatever he may have meant, I was appalled by his blunt comment and stepped in (very unnecessarily I'm sure!) to calm any presumed insult taken by my young fellow American tourists by noting how I tended to agree with this blunt statement. While the good "Vicar" McCauley did not say it: I also knew that Europe had, long before the US, publicly reported all about the insidious "Project Echelon" internet spying system of our own government intelligence services (services which nevertheless could not forestall September 11...), this system is built into "our" internet by keying onto e-mailed "key words," at least according to NSA whistle-blowers reporting it not so long ago for "60 Minutes". Many Europeans have long believed this system has been far less about our own national security and much more about corporate business espionage there, to their own deep concern. In responding favorably to Vicar McCauley, I also knew that even my brand-new HP "Pavilion" computer, bought just last fall---& giving me many disruptive freeze-ups since (have you seen those interesting Apple ads?), including forcing my re-installation recovery of all programs (esp. Outlook Express!) right in midst of recent debate!---well, my computer came out of the box over-stocked with ways & means to acccess the internet while shoving pop-up advertising into my face, all installed permenantly courtesy of both HP (to push their website & products) and Bill Gates Micro-soft (for their own so-called "up-dates" & computer tie-in greed), all to pop-up at obnoxious moments,...forever. "Our" computers simply do NOT belong to us, now do they?? They seem to be, just as Vicar McCauley indicated without saying so, an extension of the great "black hole" of those others out there in internet land who now seem to want us all on their string as these particular "internet jockies" ride headlong into our living rooms, much more so at their own whim than at ours (while ravaging our privacy in the process)! Last year, even Bill Gates announced that his system is far too complex (overstuffed with angles/hidden capacities which most of us never need/want, all appropriated/stolen/bought-off from true pioneering spirits by his Micro-soft corporation...). OK, this is about the internet and certainly NOT about September 11,...OK!? So let's keep that horrible event out of this, or any further D-List debate! (FYI: that event was inexplicable murder, about which I have written often in our local media in unequivocal condemnation. I am certainly NOT a self-righteous type common at our universities now who wish only to blame America FIRST & only (...for me, the truth is that we simply do NOT "control the world," as too many of those fools far too contrarily imply! And, NO, it certainly is not "more about us than it is about them," to turn a recent poster I saw yesterday on campus onto its very stupid, self-righteous head! THAT sort of talk is deeply offensive to me just as is invoking September 11 in any of our debates herein!). I am sure it would be to Vicar McCauley too, so I suspect & certainly hope. So then, just what otherwise are we "messing around with here" in these revolutionary new technologies, with their techno-impact in creating a "24-7" work-place, inevitably/unavoidably, with an also inevitably freedom-loving "internet" of unlimited junk-"spam" to waste our days,...not to mention shock-value violence/pornography (just to sell things, like our TVs?) & which reach into every mud-hut around the world with a laptop?? So, what's going on here outside of some simple hobbyist "gen" fun with our "beloved" medium. These too are very necessary questions some of you need to ask yourselves when getting off your sofas to do some "real" research once in a while. Thanks for listening. See my string of posts immediately following (to be concluded on Friday): my promises kept! SSquires