Recently, I was able to purchase "A History Of Rockbridge County, Virginia", by Oren F. Morton. It is a 1998 facsimile reprint of the original book which was published in 1920. It is an excellent book and can be purchased through Heritage Books Inc. at www.heritagebooks.com or at www.ancestor.com. Since I was the one who recently sent information on Naming Patterns that are sometimes used by different ethnic groups, I thought I'd also offer some other useful information on names as talked about in the above book. I was surprised to learn that our ancestors only started using middle names after 1789 and that within 50 years, having only a single name was a rarity. Prior to that, middle names were more common among the Germans. Because they were so proud of their newly founded country, you will often find initials in a person's name such as G.W. for George Washington or T. J. for Thomas Jefferson or B.F. for Benjamin Franklin. Soon after, people also started naming their children after prominent citizens of the community or a local minister. It wasn't long before middle names were given to girls too. People did not shorten names as we do now. You won't usually find a Samuel being called Sam or a Benjamin being called Ben or a Patrick being called Pat. However, it was common for certain women's names to be changed to a nickname. The most common ones were Mary became Polly, Martha became Patsy, Elizabeth became Betsy, Sarah became Sally and Agnes was often called Nancy. When researching an ancestor with one of those names, don't be surprised to find them regularly listed by the nickname instead of the given name. I hope this helps you as much as it did me. Judy Clark-Wick JWick@compuserve.com Source: "A History Of Rockbridge County, Virginia" by Oren F. Morton.