I have read with interest, the posts leading up to the old question of which Clarke did Elizabeth Mattingly marry throughout my three week vacation in Italy. I went to Italy cold turkey this time not wanting to have to deal with the hardships of electrical conversion and Internet access. But there are many Internet Cafe's through out Italy where I could log on and access my accounts. While the browser headings are in Italian. it is easy to access. I arrived home two days ago and did some checking with my records, books and contacted the two best souces I know, Linda Reno and Jerry Clark. With all her recent posts I am adding Norma Thompson to that list. I'm not going to get into the details or rehash any of the past discussions on this subject of "Is it John or Robert". More than a dozen researchers have beat this issue to death over the past few years and many including myself have held that there was inconclusive proof for either. To emphasis a point, no one except Charley that I knew felt that there was evidence presented to prove who she married one way or the other. No one has ever said Charley was wrong, just overly optomistic in his conclusions. I opted for Robert Clarke as her husband for many years but always with a footnote that it was not proven without a doubt. In my mind, arguments in the past only presented a position that no conclusive evidence existed with many comments to support those beliefs. For sure Charley's presentations, were many and with many facts, but I must admit that my personal feelings for the individual has probably tainted my reasoning in the past but I never felt that there was enough evidence to sway me from the opinions of those I respect and had done so much work to help others. Now it seems, the answer was right in front of our noses in a simple little abstract which Norma Thompson has presented that I believe is the best information we have to make some form of conclusion based on existing facts. What is so shocking is that the document has been so available for years and missed by all including myself, Jerry, Linda, Sister Donnelly and even Charley. I have had the book "Abstracts of the Inventories and Accounts of the Prerogative Court of Maryland, 1715 thru 1718 on my bookshelf for years and not noticed the entry on Page 56 dated Apr 8, 1717 which contains the data presented by Norma Thompson. Believing that "Legatees" would be "payees" or those who received payments from an estate, and knowing that it was the practise at the time for husbands of heirs to receive payments, I am changing my family file to reflect that Elizabeth Mattingly married John Clarke, not Robert Clarke. If anyone wants to rehash old presentations, there are many on both the St Mary's and Mattingly list archives but I don't recommend doing so, enough has been posted just this past two weeks. Go forward believing that Elizabeth Mattingly, daughter of Thomas Mattingly, II probably married John Clarke sometime before 1699 based upon indentures presented within the past week. If something better comes along, futher consideration can be dealt with then. But it doesn't look like we will find a marriage record. And also as a fan of America's grand old game, I agree that Norma hit a home run. Bob Alvey