Hello and welcome to all of you. Actually I was going to wait until tomorrow to send out our first welcome letter, but it looks like you guys are ready to go. I wish I could say the same. I don't even have the tag lines ready yet. I received notice that my request for the Irvin mail list was approved at about 9 am Wednesday. I figured OK, its such an unusual surname it will probably be a couple of months before there are very many people working on it. So I busied myself with another list I have and looked at the Irvin list about 2 pm. And believe it or not, Jim McAndrew had already subscribed. I wasn't even on the list yet. So I dropped him a line and we chatted. Then I posted a message to GenForum about 4 pm. I am not sure where all of you came from, but we already have 21 people. Quite a crowd for a new born list. And today Alica and Julia have generously gotten us off to a good start. Thanks. I want to welcome all of you to our new Irvin family list. I have a tool through RootsWeb called a "Smart-List" that's supposed to notify me when someone subscribes, however I'm missing the names of 4 of you. So if I miss your name in the next paragraph, forgive me, the "Smart-List" doesn't work as well as I would like. I want to extend a warm welcome to: Jim McAndrews, Dr. Madalyn Brand-Teal, John F. Eisenberg, Harry A Ide, John T. Layman, Casey Williams, Richard Mason, Julia Christianson, Steve and Donna Fletcher, Jon Martin, Heather Shaw, Bob and Jane Rogers, Ross Irwin, Alica D. Anderson, and Richard Allen. I'd also like to offer a special thanks to Julia who has generously offered to share her mother's research with us. Hope to hear from you all soon. donna brand higgins dbrand@hpnc.com