Margaret and I are pleased with recent happenings with the IAGenWeb Mills County site. The number of subscribers to our discussion list is growing - although there is not much discussion going as yet. The GenConnect page is working well and the surname pages are all up and running. Margaret has uploaded many biographies from the Fremont-Mills County History of 1901. I am only typing the Mills bios although both counties are on the index. Right now I am working on the M's. All before that are on line now. These are very flowery and long biographies but most have great genealogical information in them. I will continue with these but probably more slowly because I have another new project which is interesting me very much. As many of you know, Iowa took an 1885 and an 1895 State Census. These are unique in that they asked each person, not only for state or country of birth but also if they were born in Iowa they asked for county of birth. Unfortunately that column is in the tightly bound copy that was microfilmed and it isn't always readable in 1885. The 1895 is generally easier to read in every respect. That year they also asked what each individual's religion was. Sometimes this makes for very interesting reading. At this point I have transcribed the town of Malvern and the town of Hillsdale in the 1885 census but will be a while before I get it ready to send to Margaret to upload. Please help me out....the format I used for the 1856 census is kind of our own design. It is very much easier to type this way than to use a template and the system used by the Iowa Census Project. If you have an opinion on whether our format is understandable and easy to use, I would appreciate your comments. I am excited as I go through these census records to see so many of the names which I realize people have asked about. The 1998 queries were lost someplace when Margaret's hard drive crashed. She is getting a new hard drive and as she restores her files she hopes to find the lost queries. Meanwhile I am left with no queries to check but do recognize some of the names that you have asked about. Here are some of the names I found on the 1895 census, In Lyons Twp. James and Wm. TAGUE and families. They are living next door to the HORSTMEYERs. There are lots and lots of HAYNIEs. In Oak Twp. are Ora LEE and wife. Someone asked about CAUGHELL, I found Jacob in Anderson Twp. In White Cloud Twp is George HAMAKER and family. If you see anything here that sparks your interest let me know. Any others who are interested, I need a township and your patience while I find time to search. One last thing....please keep the mail coming to [email protected] and when you answer that mail PLEASE SEND IT TO THE LIST. Anything after that can be a private correspondence unless someone else shows an interest. I know there have been questions answered and correspondence going after that initial inquiry but privately, the list hasn't been quite as quiet as everyone thinks. Oh, another thing....just received a message this morning that Rootsweb had over 150 million messages go through its system last month...more than 2.5 million a day. If we have a glitch once in a while it is understandable. Anything I can do to help you with your research please contact me. Cay Merryman [email protected] http://www.rootsweb.com/~iamills/ listowner