Dear Cousins and Friends, I always seem to start my letters by apologizing. I owe many of you a reply to emails that you sent me that I could not answer at the time. I am sorry for the delay but if you will write again, I will try my best to reply even if I can’t help your research. I think it was Norman V. Peale that said, “Don’t tell people you problems. Eighty percent of them could care less and the other twenty percent are actually glad to see that you have more problems than they do.” So to get even with you 20% I will say that I am doing a little better health wise and my wife Carol is improving from her cancer surgery and the compilations of the radiation treatments. I have tried to read most of the emails from my main lists but for the first time in my nine years online, I delete, without opening, those emails with subjects that seem be outside my interest. The problem there is that I am interesting in almost everything and I save all the good stuff! In January before my world went into a tailspin I sent out what I had on the direct lines of my eight great grandparents. I thank all of you that replied with help or comments. One email was critical of my posting to these lists. This is part of that email. “Leon, I admire your desire to publish your data on these sites, but you must be aware that when we do that, the information is then sold by the parent of Rootsweb, and any errors by anyone posting the data is further put out to the public as gospel truth, and many of the people on these lists just keep on spreading the errors. It is not a perfect world, but your books should be purchased by people and not be given away for another entity to SELL. That's my view and I know at least 500 others that share that view. (a friend)” To this friend and all those that feel that way about sharing their research, I respect your right to do with your information as you see fit but this is how I feel after 23 years of fun doing family research. 1. The greatest fun for me has been the hundreds of wonderful new contacts that I have made with others as they help me by sharing their family info or as I helped them by sharing what information I had on common family lines. 2. I believe that every new researcher should be able to tap into the information found by earlier researchers and that they should not have to “reinvent the wheel.” Their time can be spent finding new information to add to the great pool of knowledge. 3. The internet has a lot of wrong information on nearly all of my family lines. I believe that people will compare notes and sources and correct what can be corrected. 4. I love books and have bought many for my library but I will share any info I have and help anyone I can without them buying my book. I have copied thousands of pages from other people’s books in libraries without buying them. 5. It is OK with me if Ancestry. Com or any other pay service uses my information. They can only use parts of it, not the whole book. Even if I could still travel like I want to, it is faster and cheaper to pay them than to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to find that next big breakthrough. Once again I must apologize. This time for being long winded but a lot has built up in 5 ½ months. These are the jobs our ancestors had. _http://www.genealogyinc.com/descriptions/job-A.htm_ (http://www.genealogyinc.com/descriptions/job-A.htm) Best Wishes, Leon Morris 70646 Hilltop Dr. Union, MI 49130 http://users.beanstalk.net/rokadane/morris/ 269-641-7071 (Call anytime, it is easier for me to talk than to write.)