Fred Frederick wrote: >Dave Hinz <[email protected]> wrote: > >>singhals <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>>META discussion of theory -- names not needed, no lookups needed. > > I just have to jump in here and add that I, too, have done something > quite similar to Dave's adventure: I found a man who had the surname > of interest and whose wife had my late sister's given name. Too, > the man was born in NC as was the man I sought. > > For about a year, in every spare moment I tracked this man, > recording the most minute detail of his life, positive he was my > GrGrandfather. > > Well, one day a fellow researcher found a record that my Grandfather > had lived in a certain place in 1930. Come to find out, it was my > real grandfather. Also about this time Y-DNA proved I was _not_ a > member of the first, well-researched and documented family, so I > handed over all my papers to the descendants of the man I had so > completely documented and began anew. Unfortunately for me, my real > family did not leave much of a paper trail. > > So---when do we stop the search? this is a hobby it is up to us to enjoy it in our own way for example by making web pages and helping other people or transcribing records my web presence means my cousins find me so problems solve themselves there is only one rule NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING but all ancestor trails come to an end later or sooner so get on with another branch Hugh W -- new computer = new blog http://mac-on-intel.blogspot.com/ daily blogs with new photos http://snaps2006.blogspot.com/ http://slim2005.blogspot.com/ family history http://hughw36.blogspot.com/ Hugh Watkins <[email protected]>