This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: brucabaker Surnames: Casterline, Bates, Mather, Baker, Cornish, Zobrist Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.newyork.counties.tompkins/633.1.1.3.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: We have to be careful about the children and grandchildren who are named for their father or grandfather because I see so many miscues with grandchildren being named for their grandfather as the father of certain lineages, particularly Benj Casterline who had a son Benj Casterline. Maybe that is why the inclusion of birth and death dates with marriages are important when separating different people with the same name. I was just going over some posts where James Bates the son of James Bates and Anna Casterline is mistaken for his father, let alone how Benj Casterline son of Benj Casterline and Ruth Mather is mistaken for his father just gets under my skin, ya know what I mean? Well, it is funny how Francis Bates son of Francis Bates continues to compound the problem of this lineage, doesn't it? I guess I am just a little maudlin today cause there are so many other things going on in my life, like some bozo who thinks he is the cream of society judging me by my ragged working clothes calling me a clown and a buffoon, but what kind of person would take advantage of an invalid old woman and his daughter on disability? I don't get some people in this world. Maybe we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors, and maybe if we ignore our ancestoral history we don't learn from our mistakes? I for one would like to know more so I can read into my own life's experiences some knowledge by learning from the successes and failures of my own ancestors, wouldn't you? I guess what I am saying is that we need more comparisons of recent behaviors of our common modern families with whatever we can piece together from the records of our ancestoral families if we are ever to learn how to be better than we are. Any idiot can have children, but what is the quality of life if you don't learn from your mistakes? From the patchwork of ancestors that seem to connect to this disjointed family of Casterline, Mather, Bates, Baker, and other names too numerous to mention, we finally have some connection to the past, at least the last five hundred years or so. I still don't understand the disjointed separations of ancestors from Connecticutt to Vermont to New York where they split up and go many different ways, but I am starting to see a pattern very similar to some of my modern relatives who go many different directions in today's world. In some ways, I have been drawn to many of ancestoral settlements of these ancestors over the last forty years and I had no clue why I felt I should be in a town, or state, but after finding so many ancestors in these places I guess it was like a psychic following a feeling I should be there for one reason of another. Have any of you had that psychic feeling when you are somewhere and then find later you had ancestors there you never knew existed at the time you were somewhere? Just checking. I have this theory that some of us are related to Native Americans who went to Europe 30,000 years ago, but it is just a theory as many of us have modern native American ancestors in the last three hundred years. It is possible that there are some psychics among us, and we don't even know it. Yeah, it is weird, isn't it? How many more of you with relations to Bates/ Casterline know of Native American connections in the last three hundred years but haven't posted them in the ancestoral trees? Let me know would ya? Thanks. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.