Tressie, Thank you for the Bontetourt County, VA Tax list. I hope you are defining a new direction for Genealogy in the year 2000 and beyond. Most of the Hamrick family is concerned with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, children, and grandchildren. There is nothing wrong with this and is as it should be. They are also busy with earning a living, raising their children and feeding their family, and trying to maintain and develop some family values often using some genealogy to assist them in their goals. Our current politicians are talking about returning to faith led programs instead of more government. A few of the family have reached a point where they are free of these daily chores and have some time they can contribute to further research into the origins of the family. Tressie's contributions in this direction are very valuable. Some advances in technology and documentation are making old methods of research obsolete and making new sources of data available. Instead of going to the library and studying the census for hours to find a few families we will soon have a CD-ROM or on line site of the entire United States Census where we can search the country for a name and then with a few clicks find that same family 10 years later in another state. Other research sites such as the Library of Virginia are scanning their documents into online data resources that we can address on line for free. While I abhor (I love Dan's word) the FTM who collects personal Gedcoms and then sells them for $29.95 ad nauseaum full of bad Genealogy data, the LDS, Rootsweb, and even Ancestry.com are giving them a run for their money. The LDS has a site where you can access their data which previously was available only at their Church Family History Libraries and has come out with a program similar to FTM. You can send your personal Gedcom to them and they put it on a CR-ROM with your name and address. They currently have five full CD-ROM disks out for a total price of $15.00, shipping included. They currently are producing new disks and as soon as one is full it is released for $5.00. I think you get 2 CD-ROM's for that price. One is the index for all disks and the other is the data disk. FTM would charge you $150.00 for five disks. LDS disks can be ordered from their web site http://familysearch.org using your credit card. LDS also throws in a computer genealogy program for free. You can download PAF4 from the same site and updates are also free. Again not like FTM that comes out with a program for $79.95 and upgrade every 3-4 months for an additional price. Rootsweb is also a fine organization. They came out 2 months ago with a site where you can load your Gedcom of your entire family for the LDS price of "FREE". You do not even need to know how to make a web page. I have loaded some for others who did not know how to make a gedcom but had their data in FTM. They mailed me their data disks and I made the Gedcom and put their data up with their name and E-mail on their data so others can find them. It has a self contained program that eliminates data from persons alive and can include notes and data at your desire. It is protected with a code name of your choosing and only you can change the data. The site started with 1,000,000 persons 2 1/2 months ago and currently is near 13,000,000. While I am at it, I would be pleased to put anyone's data up. Doesn't need to be restricted to Hamricks but it would be nice if it had a few. Takes me 30 minutes or less to go from FTM disk or Gedcom to completed data on the site. You can e-mail your Gedcom and go fix supper. When you finish the dishes, your data will be where you and your cousins can find it. Ancestry.com also is not a bad site. They charge a horrible $5.00 a month for some of their data but they will put up your Gedcom for the same "FREE" price. They index your Gedcom but a person must download it and import it into their own genealogy program to read it. The family would need to fix leftovers for supper themselves while you find and download, install, read, and printout a gedcom which may not even be your family. They currently have 24,000,000 persons in their Gedcoms and worldconnect will surpass them in a few months. I forgot to mention on the worldconnect site you can see and read what is there and print it out while you go fix another cup of coffee. I need to add that the Ancestry.com site adds data to their $5.00 a month service. I think it is like 3 books a day indexed. You can search for any ancestor's name and they search their database for any data on them. They also include census data and Persi. An update of Persi costs $60.00 a year. This is an index of all published material, magazines, books, genealogy materials etc that come out. It is updated monthly and annually a CD-ROM for $60.00 can be purchased. The online Persi is included in your $5.00. No CD-ROM because it is on line all the time. Persi tells you where the data is on your ancestor and what library has it. If you ask the Allen County library will copy the pages for you at a nominal fee and mail them to you. Again you can research the world from your keyboard. I do feel sorry for the flat Landers in North Carolina. My cousin S C Jones told them the earth is flat and they are going to believe it until the day they die no matter how many times the Shuttle flies around the earth. They cannot use the data on the internet, Persi, or any of these new media because they have THE HAMRICK GENERATIONS embossed in their brains and no new nerve transmissions can get in. Tressie is our own Hamrick Persi and Ancestry.com I feel sure she can print out similar lists for adjacent counties. Some of the names I recognize and others I wish I did. When someone disappears from the Tax list for several years and then comes back or doesn't come back, what happened to him. Is he in an adjacent county because the county changed it's boundaries or was a new county formed. Who was he the son of and did he marry and move away? Where did he go? Who did he marry? Who are his children? I did not realize there were so many Hamricks I knew nothing about in Bontetourt County. I'm sure if Tressie puts out the list of an adjacent county some questions will be answered but more questions will be raised by new names. If everyone who has any data about these names would write, it would help establish relationships and identify these persons. Maybe not now but with some additional data later. We cannot expect Tressie to be the only contributor to our Hamrick Persi. Everyone knows something about some person and that data may be only known to them. A few days ago James A Hamrick put some information on worldconnect about Setha Benjamin Hamrick who was a previously unknown Hamrick. A man past age 80 recognized him and wrote he was feeling poorly but when he felt better he would send him some information. Jim hopes he will feel better soon before it is past time. Don't let it be "Past Time" before you share your data. Hope this will be a wonderful genealogy year and all of your brick walls come tumbling down. With many persons help even the Berlin Wall came down. If everyone will help we may be able to knock a few down. Hope my year 2000 update has not stepped on too many toes. Depending on how much flack I receive, I might write again in 2001 if I am still here. J R http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com Click on this to go to the worldconnect site 1805: James Hambrick 1807: Charles Hamrick 1809: James Hambrick 1810: James Hambrick (C Creek) 1811-1815: James Hambrick 1817-1820: James Hambrick 1822: James Hambrick 1823-1824: James and John Hambrick 1825: John Hambrick CC John Hambrick 1826: James Hambrick 1827-1831: James and John Hambrick 1832: James Hambrick, John Hambrick, Wasington Hembrick 1833: James Hambrick; Washington Hembrick 1834: John, James Hambrick; Absolum Hembrick 1835: John and James Hambrick 1836: John, John Jr., and James Hambrick 1837: John Hambrick Uriah Hambrick Cr Cr color John Hambrick Jr Jackson Hambrick 1838-1840: John Jr., John and Uriah Hambrick 1841: John, James, Uriah, and John Hambrick Jr 1842: John Uriah and John Hmbrick Jr 1843: James, Uriah, John, John Jr., and Sam Hambrick 1844: James, Uriah, John Hambrick 1845: James S., John, Uriah L., Sam Hambrick 1846: John, James, Uriah and Sam Hambrick 1847: Uriah and Sam Hambrick 1849: Uriah L., Samuel, John and James Hambrick 1850: Uriah L., James, John Hambrick 1851: Uriah L., James, Samuel Hamrick Someone wrote me they had an Uncle Washington Hamrick in early VA and asked if I had ever heard of him. I replied "No" at that time. Hope they ask me again.