Hi All, I've been off the list for about a year, and pretty inactive before that. But now I'm stoked after spending the last week and a half in Springfield. I was visiting friends but did manage to spend quite a few hours in the absolutely stunning Library Center on south Campbell. I've been in libraries from Boston to LA and most places in between. Many of them have been larger but none of them have been nicer. I spent an entire Friday, from opening to closing, there and it was certainly nice to be able to stroll over to the coffee shop for a sandwich without leaving the building! I was amazed to find several microfilm reader-printers, all of them fully functional, and a couple of non-printing viewers as well. Add to that a very good book copier and thousands of books on local genealogy and history and you soon realize that the facility is simply incredible. The staff was very friendly and helpful. I think I could easily have spent my entire vacation there, if they'd just let me bring a sleeping bag and crash in the corner <grin>. I also visited the separate Ozarks Genealogical Society library and that too was a real treat. Inabell was very helpful and knowledgeable about local families. I picked up a few of their publications and a list so I can order more as I find I need them. One of the OGS publications saved me many, many, hours. The nationally published (Sistler, I think) index for 1870 did not list an ancestor that I knew was in MO and believed was in Greene County. I had started an exhaustive check of every Anderson listed in the MO index (thinking they must be in another county) when I found the OGS index. Bingo, there was the family, right in Greene county where I expected them. The Sistler index had missed them! The morning of the 7th I visited Rose Hill cemetery and found the graves of my paternal grandparents and both sets of paternal g-grandparents, as well as a bunch of uncles and whatnot. I took pictures and surprisingly most of them turned out okay. I intended to go back for a rubbing of one very old and faded stone but I never got the chance. I also found out after the visit (via a history book at the OGS Library) that my grandfather was head carpenter on the Rose Hill Church (the earlier building) and that the pulpit he made was still in use in 1976 when the book was published. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to go back to see if the pulpit was still in use or to get a picture of it. Probably the highlight of the list was finding a living first cousin. I am a late son of a late son and have never met any of my father's family. The OGS library had a couple of huge volumes of a survey that they made in 1990 or 1991 (I don't remember the name of the survey). Anyway, my cousin Eleanor was listed there, with a phone number and address. I knew of her from census data but had not known if she was living or where. I called her and though she had moved into an assisted living center she was still living in Springfield. We got to meet one morning, the oldest and youngest grandchildren of Isaac Thomas Atchley, her 82 and me 44. Thanks OGS! Next year I'm hoping to visit Greene Co., Polk Co., and then on to Sevier Co., TN. Thanks for letting me crow, John Atchley