Howdy folks - I'd like to add my own story. Some years back a non-blood aunt passed away, in Oregon, and from her I inherited a number of items - books, Christmas balls, letters, scrapbooks, etc. One of the scrapbooks was probably that of her parents, whom I can only recall ever calling them anything but Mr & Mrs Van. My aunt had an unmarried sister, whose last name was Van Nostrand, but until I joined this list and got more involved in its genealogy, I never knew that NJ was probably the origin of their family. The Vans lived in West VA or VA (sorry, a memory lapse, but I do remember the house) and as a child, my brother and I used to ride the B&O out of Philly, down to Wash DC where they'd pick us up at the station. Anyway, back to the scrapbook. It's about 1 1/2 inches thick and contains many family photos, including one of my aunt when she was 10 days old. And it contains many civil engineering photos from the very early 1900's of Mr. Van being a student at Cooper Union, an engineering school in NY (still in existence), from which he probably graduated in 1908. There's lots of photos of his fellow students too. The greater number of pictures are of family and family dogs. Now, why am I writing this? Hmmmm, well, a great deal of effort went into placing identification for all their dogs, but as for people, hardly a name at all. So even if I wanted to trace this family, it would be near impossible to identify the nice old lady in the long dress, with the cameo up close to her neck, holding her shotgun, and next to an aged gentleman in his black suit and tie. Or even the men and women in the sail boat, out on some lake waving to all happy to the picture taker. Dogs yep, people nah. So, listen folks, if ya wanna pass on all those photos of the family members, PLEASE remember to write (in pencil) on the reverse side, or in the book or album WHO THE HECK THEY ARE. Ummm, I did find one good name among those who were Mr. Van's classmates - Jack Armstrong, and did find him in a Who's Who for Engineering for 1937. The Vans only had the 2 daughters, and neither had children. End of line, end of story! David - [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.