Hi, Just a "heads-up" for all of us that are so eager to find something on our families or something that might be of interest to others in their family research. Handwiting, logs, journals and especially photos are mass produced and are for sale in antique and collectable shops all over the country. I found this out by accident while browsing in an antique mall and looking at old photos. I was looking through a bin of old photos and completely enjoying myself wishing I could find something of a family that looked like my people or with a notation on the back that may belong to someone else that could be posted to help other researchers. As I moved through the antique mall, there was another "stall" of grouped antiques and a large old pitiful wooden box with photos. As I went through these I recognized some that I had seen before....I thought, so I went back to the other side of the mall with the photos and sure enough there was a match of exactly the same photo. I had a friend that had some collectables set up in the mall and I asked her and her husband about the photos. The reply was a little disheartening. "Old photos are copied all the time by suppliers, some even go so far as to mount them on old black photo album paper and tatter the edges. They are sold enmasse to dealers that want to add a collection to their wares as a means of keeping a customer among their objects a little longer, and yes of course the photos are for sale, some as much as $1.50 to 3.50 a piece." Now, there's a bright side to all this. The photos had to come from somewhere and hopefully they are genuinely old photos. It sure would be nice if they are greedy enough to mass produce our families' photos, they would also include any writings that are on the back or notations on the photos! "Oh, some do", I was told. "There are even those that mass produce old journals and logs, bind them in old rotten book covers and sell them at a premium." So don't give up checking these things out. You never know when your great-great granfather's nephew has been printed out for the masses and shipped all over the country or that old family journal that some young aspiring writer kept through their childhood for the family because they thought their lives were memorable enough to save. Bless them all and I hope we each have the opportunity to find someone in print for ourselves or for someone else. Don't forget to dig through these items when you get the chance. Best to all on the list. Lou Ann -- -- ******************************************************************** Lou Ann & Woody Lunsford NATIVE TEXAN 8310 Werner, Houston, TX 77037-3027 TEXAS PROUD 281/447-8803 Fax 281/447-2133 ********************************************************************