At 09:55 AM 1/27/00 -0600, you wrote: >Hi Mary, >I saw your note yesterday regarding your search for more Fay descendants >in Wisconsin. I am on the Wisconsin list, and can forward your note if >you'd like. I have several other Wisconsin Fays to go to that list too, so >its no big deal. >Bob Fay >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Dear Bob, Thank you so much for your help. Please forward the note to Wisconsin FAYs although at present I really can't add another list to my computer. I am just about swamped at present, with Cook Co, Ill Traces, Roots-L-Digester and FAY-D-Digest. However, I will be glad to help anyone if the contact me directly by e-mail. The more distribution that above mentioned particular note gets, the better, as these would be my closest kin. I need to find them in order to get permission from all concerned to recut a pair of gravestones or to put up a new one in their place. My Dad was really upset to find that his grandfather's gravestone read "FATHER" and not George Washington Fay" and that his grandmother's read "Mother" and not "Nancy Betsey Robinson FAY" Because of the lack of the name, my second cousins twice removed, who live in Wisconsin, were unaware of the location of his grave and of their own greatgrandfather and grandfather's graves. If you need filler you can use this: The FAY Family Contact Person and What She Does: As the Contact Person for the FAY Family Gathering, I end up doing a lot more than just inputting the Orlin P. Fay and other sources into the FAY Family Data Bank. I have also reunited about 40 people with their long-lost but closer-than-me cousins. So far I have entered into the FAY Family Data Base some 23 files of data alphabetically arranged by given name within the FAY surname, and 5 by Surname for those FAY women who married "out" of our family. Each file runs about 500,000+ pieces of data/ bytes? (Several years ago, I mistakenly pushed "print whole document" on the single file I had and it was 650 pages long. I really had to scramble for paper, because I had not learned to "cancel print" on printing jobs.) There is also a separate file for FAY References. All of this is in Word Perfect, not a GEDCOM File. I am adding several people per day to the files, on most days. I have helped one person find resources for a book on Mr. Wells, the husband of a Susan Fay and a Civil War Veteran who died three days after he returned from the that war. I also helps his grandnephew interpret cemetery documents. I am also researching another of his great uncles who lived in Annapolis, MD. I seem to be a traveling FAY Bard or Herald these days with side trips to meet the cousins, as well as making a report to the FAY Family Gathering of Washington DC every month or so. I am constantly doing my own research in libraries and genealogical societies, so that I will have better answers for my readers. I also go to cemeteries and photograph FAY and allied family gravestones and transcribe them for my Data Base. We just got a scanner for Christmas, so now I can try to input some photographs into my files, when I get the hang of the machine. My next order of business will be getting a digital camera so that I can get the stuff directly into computer code. I will also try for a video camera, so that I can film our FAY kin to share with y'all. Then, I am constantly evaluating the material which is sent to me by informants. This includes buying books and then reading the passages, so that I can try to determine how valid a book may be. I can then post my opinions to the FAY-D-Digest list for all of you to read. I also try to answer a myriad of questions which FAY Cousins have concerning their own families, and FAY Researchers have concerning their research subjects. It really helps when I receive a new list of descendants down from an end point in Orlin P. Fay's book, but it takes a tremendous amount of time to open new files and get the new data hooked up to the old stuff in the data base. In putting a family line can take a week, if it is along list of people. I am thankful for the snow and cold this week, so I am able to bear down on the FAY research without wanting to go out so much. (I got about 16 inches at my house and the snow piles, which took two days to dig out, are more than 4 feet high). I also try to initiate new FAY genealogists into this exciting world of genealogy, by answering how-to questions using my own research as examples. Therefore, one frequently gets two items for the price of one. I serve as an Informant to the FAY -D-Digest and the GENFORUM: Fay Family Genealogical Forum. On the local level, I set up lunches for our FAY Family Gathering of Washington, D.C. which are mini family reunions of the local descendants of John Fay Sr/1 [OPF #1] We have between 25-30 families here, representing most of the lines of descent from John Fay Sr., and about 10 to 30 people will show up for lunch at a given location. We plan to have a picnic this summer, if I can find a park with a shelter in the Washington DC area. Now, I am beginning to work on a FAY Family Reunion for Thanksgiving Weekend to be held in Massachusetts, if I can get enough support. The occasion would be the 310th Anniversary of the death of John Fay Sr/1 (Dec. 5, 1690). With the uncertain calendars of the time (New Style/Old Style), I think that Thanksgiving would be close enough to the date and would give us a long weekend (4 days) for most FAYs to come "Home." We would be talking of a major level Reunion here as I have more than 200 family correspondents in the National FAY Family Directory. Each correspondent has their own family list as well, but not the National list. So we have the potential for lots of people to come and have a good time finding out who the FAY's are. However, I can't do this size reunion alone, so if you can help, please send an E-mail with a Subject line with "310th Fay FG" and be sure that I have your address and telephone number. Send it to me directly at <mary.bob.nelson@worldnet.att.net> Further down the track in 2006, I would like another FAY Family Gathering/Reunion for the 350th Anniversary of the arrival of John Fay to the American Colonies This one would be in late June, 2006. It would be even bigger than this year's project. The National FAY Family Directory is a list which is used only for FAY Family business, and to reunite long lost cousins, and for a possible hard copy newsletter, which I keep promising, but I haven't found the time to get started. Each entry contains the full name of the FAY descendant, their spouse, their address, telephone number e-mail&/FAX number; line of descent form John FAY Sr./ 1, and children with birth dates for children optional. Thus you see why I don't send out the list to you. However, I will introduce you to other cousins from that list. I also have a Local FAY Family Directory because the 30 families here would bug me to death for each other's telephone numbers if I didn't give them a copy. All of them have agreed to being on the Local list. I would like to encourage you to host a local, area, or state FAY group, and I would welcome the chance to introduce you to other FAY's in your general areas. We really do have a fine time together. We are about to start a FAY Family Gathering of Coastal Georgia as there are now 4 families down there. We will have to start slowly with perhaps one meeting per 6 months. Well, that's a taste of what I do as a hobby. My big task for the year is to sell our house down in Statesboro, Ga and crunch the combined possessions in two houses down into one house. We are moving into 12131 Long Ridge Lane, Bowie, MD 20175, where I have lived for two years. Bob will retire after 30 years of teaching college Chemistry in May. He will then work part time for NASA at the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, MD for a while. After we get settled down to one house in Bowie, my dream would be to go to England for some hands on research on John Fay Sr/1's parentage and answer the question: Was his dad David Fay, as according to OPF, or William Fay, according to a letter I just received. I'll keep you posted with references when I find out for sure. Sincerely, Mary (FAY) Nelson 9