-->> 10/08/2001 10:41:43 AM Mountain Daylight Time, bhallowell@erols.com writes: > I look on the 1880 Mississippi census and I found two Dunns ... > Minor Dunn farm laborer age 42 white ... or Wash Dunn farm helper > Black age 32 ... <<-- > Good morning fellow list members, Might I inject a suggestion to help in our research to clarify and sort our ancestors? The above copied excerpt pointed out how difficult it can be for those of us with multi-racial, multi-cultural heritages to keep our relatives in the correct lineage. In that message, 2 families are listed of different racial backgrounds - both possibly cross into my heritage (further research is necessary to connect them up). This has happened before & as I find more relatives, it's been happening more frequently. I'm proud to claim all people related to our family, which seems to have always been colorblind & culturally openminded. The difficulty comes in sorting which members belong to which family. This listing which clearly shows the race of each makes it so much easier to do. My suggestion is that, if known, when listing you may want to state the race/heritage. Historically, it appears that there was a time period when there was a mixing of races (whether by choice or not makes little difference to genealogy) during the slave periods. Then there was a time period when there was little mixing. Followed by our more current open lifestyles where again the mixing happens. As a person of truly mixed heritage thru many generations, I make no judgments on this situation. As a genealogy researcher, knowing the differences helps a lot. I suggest desinating both racial (black/caucasian/oriental/Native American) and cultural (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish, for example - another of my family lines difficult to follow). It helps to know where to look for the records if you know origins. I sincerely hope this suggestion does not offend anyone. My intention is simply to find a better way to aid our research. So far my research has managed to find & prove relatives of origins which include: Caucasian, Black, Korean, Japanese, Danish, English, Native American, Phillipine, French, German, Hispanic - which makes us truly an international family group, now if I could only find an Inuit & an alien from outer space I think I'd just about have covered all sources. ;-) My wish to all is successful researching - Sherry in a cool fall Colorado