For three years I have been a member of the Jo Daviess group and I replied to Karen Blance Thomas after reading her article in our current Rootsweb newsletter. She had written about how computers have really aided in her genealogical quests. Here is a copy of what I wrote to her: I started my HART family quest one summer afternoon in 1976 and after about ten years I thought I had exhausted every possible lead. 18 years passed. 5 binders and one blue suitcases of information were stored away. After an 18 year gap my searching took off with lightning speed. I bought a computer. I really thought all that was left for me to do was to enter 5 binders and one blue suitcase of information into the computer. One Sunday afternoon in June of 1998 was I in for a surprise While typing a letter dated 15 years earlier, a yellow obituary fell to the floor. Since it listed many more names that were relatives of the deceased, I decided to use the search engines on the Web and people search to get some phone numbers. I talked with two very nice Harts, but alas, we were not related but then, on my final telephone call of the day, (I was a little concerned with the long-distance phone bill I was creating), I FOUND a relative who linked me up with another etc. etc. I had resigned myself to living with many unsolved questions especially about one of my Hart relatives who had died in 1961, BASIL HART. Of all the relatives, He was the most adventurous and, if you will, famous. With little more than a 8th grade education, he left home and worked in the mines in the West (Colorados Cripple Creek area) with some of his uncles and cousins and then the real adventure began. In 1910 he traveled with a cousin of Jesse James to Panama and worked on the Panama Canal. They traveled to Brazil and worked on the Railroad through the jungles of Western Brazil and they heard "El Dorado" stories of gold in British Guiana and off they went again. Basil established himself in western British Guiana (a grazing area where cattle was "king.") He married the daughter of the Brit. Governor of the area (her mother was the daughter of an important Indian Chief in the area) and was given hundreds and hundreds of acres of grazing land and created one of the largest ranches in the area. He raised 6 sons and one daughter. The children had dual citizenship and the sons fought with the Americans during WWII and trained people in jungle-survival on Trinidad. The British writer Evelyn Waugh wrote about stopping at the HART ranch in his book: Ninety-three days and another writer wrote about the Basil and the HART ranch in his book: Working north from Patagonia. So many unanswered questions. But now, thanks to the computer and the internet I actually found three of Basils children still living! Two are in Denver and one is still in Brazil. I think you can imagine what a thrill went through my body when I received my first email then letter then phone call from his daughter and then from her brothers. Now I know the "rest of the story." I am so thankful. Of all my relatives, Basil was the most adventurous. Most of the other worked as miners in the booms cities of Silver City, Idaho, Cripple Creek and Victor, Colorado, Butte, Montana and Grass Valley, California. They were hard-working men who struggled all their lives just to raise their families. In 1983, my mother, aunt and I went back to Denver Colorado and met about 10 HARTS but never met the other branch who lived in Denver as well. I really have to also thank George Hart for slipping that obit. in one of his letters so long ago. He planted the seed with took 18 years to bloom when the time was right and computers linked the world... one Sunday afternoon, a yellowed newspaper clipping fell to the floor and it propelled me through one of the most rewarding adventures of my life. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Susan Hart San Francisco State University Internet: [email protected] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-