Good evening, We have gained about 14 new subscribers in the last few weeks. If you have not already done so, please post a message letting us know about your surname interests in Des Moines Co., IA For that matter, I think it would be great to hear from any of our subscribers. Although I not have found many ancestors in the Rootsweb mailing lists, I have discovered many new resources and problem solving strategies by reading how others have conducted their research. Would anyone like to share a recent breakthrough? Has anyone found a Des Moines County resource particularly helpful? Lately, I've come to appreciate the newspaper obituaries. I discovered the married names of two ggg-aunts by finding my gg-grandfather's obituary in The Hawk Eye. You know how it is, the girls eventually disappeared from the census and I didn't know if they married or had died. As it happens, Dorothea Drebenstedt had become Dorothea Eckermann and moved to Alhambra County, CA and Mary had wed William Young and moved to Mt Pleasant. I am now close to locating their living descendants. Perhaps pictures or stories have come down their branch of the family tree that would be of interest to me. http://www.familysearch.org has microfilmed copies of mortuary records for Des Moines County although I do not think that they go back further than 1880. Tina List Admin ~ If the shoe fits, you're not leaving room for growth.~