Hello, all Hallmans, The New Year is here. Y2K is over with very little problems reported. Has everyone recovered from the holidays? Yes..Then, it's a good time to get a little action going again on our list. Someone suggested awhile back that we should tell the list if we have met a new cousin since we joined this list. I'd like to expand that to encompass any new cousin we have met on any list we are on, or anywhere through the Internet or otherwise, in the past year. The new cousin doesn't have to be a *Hallman connected relation.* This is primarily to encourage our new subscribers who haven't found much information yet & perhaps are becoming discouraged in their research. I have found a new connection recently in my HUTCHINGS line. This has been a difficult line to pursue, although I have traced my ancestry back to the our first HUTCHINGS to arrive in America, Abraham HUTCHINGS, a British soldier sent to America sometime in the late 1700's or very early 1800's. I haven't traced him back to England, as yet. Hope to be able to do that sometime in the future. The surname Hutchings is a common name, especially in England, and many of that surname arrived early in America. I had never found any that were related to me. I have received queries from some who saw my website but none were related to me. So, it was a real surprise when I pulled down my e-mail messages a month or so ago and started reading a message from a lady who said she was inquiring about the HUTCHINGS' surname for her cousin, who had no knowledge of his family's history. She said his mother was a Phyllis HUTCHINGS, born in Michigan in the County (she thought) of Livingston, married to a WEBB, etc. etc. I couldn't believe it. Phyllis was not only my 3rd cousin but she was also my all-time most favorite school teacher. She was the teacher in my first year at a little one-room rural schoolhouse in Michigan. The only error in the message was that Phyllis was born in the same county where I was also born, Shiawassee County. I was thrilled that, finally, I had met a Hutchings relative. This lady even e-mailled me a picture of Phyllis and her husband, taken in the 1940s. So, this is my most recent Cousin story. We have 50+ subscribers on our list so there should be some of you who have interesting stories, too. Let's hear from you! Your List Hostess Faith Hutchings faith@verdenet.com