Dear List Just got back from my flying visit to California for the family wedding and thought I'd dash off this quick report. Firstly, I think this list has really perked up with all the instances of serendipity coming in. Wow!! I'm fairly pragmatic but can all this REALLY be coincidence? Anyway, the "even spookier stuff". One of our ancestors was a Dr Louis LeGear, son of a LeGear that went to Ontario in 1843. He qualified as a veterinarian in Toronto. He practised in St Louis, Missouri and also started the "Doctor LeGear Medicine Company" in the late 1800s manufacturing Veterinary products which he, and his brothers, hawked from wagons they used to travel around in to farms and ranches in the West. The Company is long defunct. The day after the wedding the largest known collection of LeGears to be in the same place at the same time decided to go up to a Town called Columbia, which some of you may know. It's an old Western Town which has been preserved and is still used for films (High Noon, The Unforgiven etc). The Drug Store is preserved with authentic products from the times behind glass cases. In the middle of the middle shelf of the middle case was a tin of Doctor LeGear's Sore Head Powder for chickens. The wedding was full of stuff like this. for instance, both families originated in Southern California, although hundreds of miles apart. The bride and groom met at UCLA. It was only at the wedding that the bride's father found out another amazing link. As a boy his close friend that lived next door moved away with his family to another part of the state when he was about 12 years old. As kids do, they lost touch. That boy became the best friend, as a teenager, of the grooms's father. I was amazed at the United States and the people I met there. It and they were fabulous and it was a privelege for me to be able to visit such a wonderful country. Chris LeGear _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp