I sent the following message to Cathy Obeshaw yesterday, with a copy to 'the list'. Because I'd included some rich text formatting the list copy bounced back, so here's the original without the enhancements! I've had an initial reply from Cathy so I've pasted that in below, after my original. From past experience I'm sure other 'listers' will be able and willing to help and encourage Cathy with her research. Best wishes to all Robin >Hi Cathy An uncle of mine recently passed me a cutting from his local paper - the Wiltshire News I think. I've retrieved its equivalent from their website: "Hi, I am searching for the families of Jordan, Cummins, Lovelock and Newman. I have a James Jordan married to Elizabeth Newman in 1801. I have Caroline Cummins married to Jonas Cummins (son of John). I have John Jordan married to Eliza Lovelock in 1845. Thomas Jordan married to Eliza Alderman. Any links to these families would be great. The Jordan family is from the Wootten Rivers/Pewsey area. The Cummins from Buttermere. Thank you so much Cathy Obeshaw Posted July 2004" Among other things it's clear that Basil - my uncle - has been 'sitting on' this for a while 'til he saw me. Apologies for that. We're descended from Wootton Rivers Lovelocks, so depending on where you fit amongst the four family names you quoted, we may be more or less distantly related. More on this below. Over the last few months, Basil and I have become (more) interested and involved in our family history, mainly through hearing about and taking part in a weekend gathering - 'Lovelocks Alive' - which took place in early June in Hungerford (Berkshire). It seems from the date of your note in the local paper that you 'just missed it'. You may of course live far away, although Lovelocks attended from many parts of the world, as well as 'locals'. What that weekend drew me into was a fantastic website devoted to Lovelock Family history; you can find it at http://perso.numericable.fr/~lovjames/family-history/lovelock/ If you visit the site you'll find not only hundreds of photos of the Lovelocks Alive weekend, but masses of material which I'm sure will be helpful in your investigations - albeit primarily on the Lovelock dimension. I mentioned that I'm descended from the Wootton Rivers Lovelocks; as you'll see from the website, there've been some significant developments over the summer on several puzzles concerning whether/where the WR Lovelocks link into a particular very large family tree which has been built up. This has been an ongoing saga and some of the relevant discussion has taken place on a Lovelock mailing list, which you may also like to visit and - I recommend - subscribe to; this is at http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/l/lovelock.html Discussion also goes on off-list of course, especially on points of detail. In fact (and apologies if this or anything else I've written is already very familiar to you) Rootsweb hosts hundreds of surname-based mailing lists, so I'm sure you'll find some or all of the other three names you're interested in represented. The Lovelock Family History website also has search facilities, so you could put in each of the other three names and see where that goes. I hope you won't mind that I'm copying this email to the Lovelock mailing list, as an easy way of alerting others with an interest in the Pewsey/Wootton Rivers area and in effect inviting them to contact you. Also, as well as myself, I'm sure one or more of Graham Lovelock, James Loveluck and Robert Sterry will be pleased to hear from/help you. These three are among the 'main movers' as regards the Lovelock website material - as you'll quickly see when - as I hope you will - you visit the site, and they're all vastly more experienced than me in doing family history. I'm also copying this to them 'direct' - they'll get it anyway via the mailing list - so you'll find their email addresses above. I was pretty sure I recalled some of the other names you're interested in from browsing and working with Lovelock website data. (It wouldn't surprise me if Graham and/or others immediately have more leads.) Sure enough, the wedding of John Jordan and Eliza Lovelock appears in a large file on the website called 'Lovelocks in Wiltshire', which is organised by parish and consists mainly of data extracted directly or indirectly from parish registers. Thus - as you probably know perfectly well! - the John/Eliza wedding appears in the Wootton Rivers PR as having taken place on 8 November 1845. There's also Eliza's baptism - well, it's a reasonable assumption it's hers - on 25 December 1822. (Incidentally, three of her brother David's children were also baptised at Wootton on Christmas Day, during the 1850s.) Looking at what was until recently 'merely' 'a Wootton Rivers Fragment', but which now (as briefly mentioned earlier) forms part of the largest tree which Graham, James, Robert and others have built up, namely the so-called 'Lieflock line', I found that Eliza was in fact the younger sister of my great-great-grandfather, David, born in Wootton Rivers in 1814 - the David I mentioned in the 'Christmas Day' bracket a couple of lines above. Identifying Eliza and David's parents, John and Elizabeth, with reasonable confidence has been the key to the mystery of linking the Wootton Rivers Lovelocks to the Lieflock line. Eliza and her husband appear near the top of page 3 of the latest pdf file version of the Lieflock line. (I hope 'pdf' etc. means something to you; it will when you're on-site I'm sure.) I hope at least some of this is helpful and encouraging, and that you'll find lots more that's useful in your research via the pointers I've tried to give. And of course, I'll be very happy to hear back from you. With best wishes Robin PS I'd be interested to know where you're living - UK? USA? (aol.com!) I live in Southampton, about 45 miles south of Wootton Rivers. Basil lives in Devizes, rather closer to WR, but to the west (and a bit south!). Kathy's reply: >Hi Robin, I live in Michigan U.S.A. I just found that our Jordan line connects to the Newman line. I have James Jordan born abt 1780 and Elizabeth Newman born abt 1782 both in Wootton Rivers. I have nothing else on them, but would love to learn more if you or anyone could help me. I can't get to England. My Cummins line is out of Berks, Wilts and Hampshire. Thank you so much for contacting me and all the help in your letter. I will look and see what I can find. Will wait to hear from you again, Cathy Obeshaw