Hi Guys! I'm researching the Eachus family and one of the branches includes Andrew S. Dempsey and his third wife Melissa Eachus. I contacted Briggs Library this afternoon and Marta looked up Andrew for me. There were three marriages but none to Melissa. The first Lawrence County marriage record for Andrew is to Susan Piles, Jan. 7, 1849. According to some GenForum posts about Melissa Robert N. Wiseman (Historian Wiseman Family Association) claims Susan's maiden name wasWiseman and she is the widow of Francis Piles http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?Dempsey::eachus::226.html The second marriage that Marta found was Andrew Dempsey to Anna M. Wiseman, Sept. 2, 1855. At first I thought Anna was the sister of Andrew S's Susan, but as it turns out, if I'm reading some online stuff correctly, Anna is the first cousin of Susan and married Andrew J. (the son). The third marriage Marta found is Sarah A. Kemp Feb. 10, 1857. That would be the son again. There is no record for Andrew and Melissa who were married Dec. 28, 1859. Does anyone know if they went to Boyd or Greenup County to get married? I checked Gallia, which is where the bride was from, and couldn't find her. The only other possibility is that they married in Bedford County, Pa. Does anyone know if the Dempsey family lived over there? I ask this because Melissa was living with her older sister at least as late as 1856 in Bedford County, PA. According to the 1850 census she was living with Maria and her husband John P. Smith. According to Gallia County Chancery records, the court was petitioned by the Administrator of Rufus' estate to force a sale of the land to cover debts. All the children were listed as defendants and the record stated specifically that John P. Smith, Maria Smith and Melissa Eachus were all non-residents. I'm assuming she was still with her big sister. I have reason to believe that Melissa had a much closer relationship with her big sister than the average sister today. For more on that you'll have to read my website, as my theory is quite complex. I have quite a bit on Melissa's father Rufus on my website at http://lindatrent.homestead.com/rufuseachus.html if anyone's interested. But I will caution that I have challenged a couple of old beliefs, and prove that Melissa was the daughter of the first wife, and not Nancy Sullivan as many Eachus researchers have believed. :-) BTW, all the census records on my site are hyperlinked to ancestry.com and require an ancestry.com subscription to view. I've only had the site up for about a week, and am still working on it, but it's a good solid start. Any questions, corrections, comments, etc. are welcome I am also hoping to start an Eachus DNA project, currently there is none. So if anyone's interested please get in touch with me. Participants must be male and must have the surname Eachus. I know virtually nothing about DNA other than what the average person knows. It goes tester, father, grandfather, great grandfather... BTW, for those who don't know Rufus was the husband of Nancy Sullivan, and they had two children Henry and Thomas. After Rufus died Nancy married Thomas Kelly and moved to Lawrence County. Thanks, Linda Trent linda_trent@att.net