http://genealogy.about.com this site has free charts,surname meanings, genealogy 101, has many nice articles about how to begin and common mistakes made(by almost everybody) and how to avoid them etc.. To me about.com is a little used search engine that has a lot of great points.Its not nearly as big as yahoo or google so you don't get swamped by 100000's of connections fuzzy-brandy-butter-elf Proud member of the IBSSG __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com