Good Morning Everyone: I am back after our trip to Creswell for the kick off the 200th anniversary of Washington Co celebration. It was wonderful. I spent Friday in the Courthouse at Plymouth - and let me tell you those are really and truly one great bunch of helpful, kind and nice people at that courthouse which is not the norm. I collected a lot of information on the Ambrose and Davenport line which I will get up on my homepage before long. One thing that might interest you all is that the courthouse has a computer printout in alpha order of all the births and deaths for the county since 1913 and they have copies of all of the birth and death certificates right there that can be copied. Talk about making it easy to research a name! And another thing. The Genealogy Helper and Red Book both talk about the courthouse burning 3 times. This is true, but what they don't say (or at least I don't remember them saying) is that the deed records were saved each time. This means that all of the deed records from 1799 until present are intact. Marriages are only on file from 1850 on which was a bummer but at least the records after that are there. There are no actual licenses - just a marriage register with names, dates and who married the couple. There was one period of time where the court clerk listed the parent's names and some additional information which is great if your ancestors got married within that time frame. The Davenport House was ready to be viewed and all of the "crafts" of the old days were really well done. I passed on sampling the "bear stew" but there were a lot of takers and those who tried it pronounced it "very good". I'm certainly glad they enjoyed it! <g> It was really fun to meet the people I talk to over the internet and to be able to put a face with a name. I purchased the two Washington Co History books that are available and thought I'd pass along some information to those of you who might not know they are available. The first one is small and is designed with the young person in mind. It contains a lot of information without being overwhelming and doesn't contain family histories. Excellent book! The 2nd one is HUGE! I has 700 pages and over 250 photos. The history of the area and Washington Co is extremely well done. The family histories are nice although there are not a lot of them. I would suggest that if you are doing research in Washington Co you give serious consideration to purchasing one or the other of these books. The small one is $20.00 plus $5.00 shipping and handling The big one is $50.00 plus $5.00 shipping and handling They can be ordered from: Washington County Bicentennial Publications P.O. Box 1007 Plymouth, NC 27962 I will post the names of the family genealogies that are in the book tomorrow morning - I have to get ready for work right now. Linda lhaasdav@mindspring.com Home Page: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~haas/ County Coordinator and Archivist: Marion Co AR http://www.rootsweb.com/~armarion