Okay, it might not make me the most popular person on the list, but I want to jump into this discussion. As one of many cousins on this list who are descended from Priscilla, I want to be able to document all known facts about her situation for future generations of my family line. If the rest of you on the Estes List get tired of the discussion before we do, we can collect email addresses and take it off-list for just those who are interested. That's perfectly understandable. Meanwhile, I think I have the same questions that Marilyn did (I think, mind you), but mine were not answered with Donna's response. Donna, I appreciate that you took the time to send all the information you did and I appreciate that you've been a genealogist for 46 years. I know you've done a lot of work to find answers about our shared family members, and I appreciate the amount of effort you've put into the research. I just wanted to get that right out front so you hopefully will not feel attacked or flamed by my questions & discussion. I am also well aware of Pat Finnell's excellent research work. Likewise, I hope you can recognize that those of us who have been at this a shorter time may have *very* good research skills -- even equal to yours. Sorry to say, I do not think any of us is an authority on this subject. I am also painfully aware that several "documented" publications contain erroneous information or "enhance" the facts; some contain outright fabrications. I have not been able to buy your book on my meager budget, so I have no questions about what is in the book. I just want to know what your sources are for the statements you made on all these lists about Priscilla's capture, life with the Indians and rescue. The information you listed as sources for what is in your book were non-specific, so I still know no more now than I did before you listed them. I have studied almost all of those same sources (most of which are secondary sources) and do not come away with any *facts* that directly state any of those things actually involved Priscilla. Not one of them gives her name and we do not, as a group of searching cousins, have (to my knowledge) any other hard fact that even gives a definite location or date for *any* of these events. There were hundreds -- thousands -- of attacks, captures, white children who were raised with Indian families, and even rescues during that same time frame and in the same areas our family lived. Unless a name is given, it's impossible to be certain. The McKenzie/McKensey story is where the hired girl is mentioned as a "young woman." And the whole Richard Estridge thing is terribly suspect in my mind, because there were families who were in those same areas at the same times who went by the surnames of Estridge and Eskridge at least since their feet hit U.S. soil. They never went by Estes in the U.S. I know that because I'm related to them (not through the Estes family). The ESTES name has been "re-worked" many ways, but I'm reluctant to vault to the conclusion that if there is a somewhat similar story that names a Richard Estridge as the father of one captive child, that child is actually our Priscilla ESTES. In this case, the story has been turned around anyway, since in the actual account Richard Estridge's daughter was not taken by the Indians. She ran for help. I'm especially reluctant to throw the Estridge assumption around as fact and stretch it out further to mean that Priscilla's father was Richard Estes (because we can't figure out which Estes it would have been otherwise). If ALL other facts (or at least most of them) match what else we know, I'm much less reluctant. That isn't the case here. There is also a MILLER story that is so similar it would make your hair stand on end, and it happened right where our MILLERs were at the time. What does any of that prove? I have had a burning question since I first saw someone assert the Richard Estridge theory: Donna's conclusions about Priscilla's capture are based on a belief that Priscilla was bound out to another family at the time of her capture. Why would she have been bound out to someone if Richard Estridge was supposedly her father (who was alive at the time) and we know that her mother was alive then as well? Virtually all of the family stories even state that her parents were gone to work in the fields or take their grain to the mill (depending on the story), so why would we assume that Priscilla was the hired girl at another house? And if we do assume that, why are both of her parents living at the time? I've rolled these questions around in my mind a million times. I, too, find the Draper manuscripts pretty intriguing, but I would not go so far as to draw up the rest of the story around that manuscript story and state it all as fact. There are a great many other references besides those you named that give information that could be woven into a theory about Priscilla's life. In my own book manuscripts, I handle things that are not proven fact by either prefacing an assumption with a statement that these listed items have led me to believe it happened this way, or by using statements like "we assume," "apparently," "appears to have," and so on throughout the text. I haven't seen Donna do that, so I trust that she must have some proof for these claims. I have been working on connecting parts of this family for a good many years, but I have not been a genealogist for 46 years. In fact, it has only been in the past few years that I was able to determine with certainty that Priscilla ESTES was indeed "my" Priscilla. I am more than happy to share whatever information I find or possess with anyone else who is interested. The more people we have with all the available information, the more additional information we're likely to find. Even when I have a book for sale, my data is available to cousins, because cousins have contributed immensely to the proof and conjecture alike in my files. I am only the compiler and author of the commentary. I just want to know, specifically, what information in the named sources points an absolute finger at Priscilla in those events. Is my search for the story really over, or are these just assumptions and educated guesses you've made, Donna? If you've found the goods that give us some fact, I think we'll all shout "hooray" and sing, "For she's a jolly good fellow..." But if these answers are not solid fact, we need to keep looking. All I'm asking is, "Is it fact or assumption?" If it's fact, please share chapter, verse and line with the rest of us so we can start directing our energies elsewhere. -- Cheri