Hi everyone, I will be in Pennsylvania at the beginning of June for a family wedding and will have 3 days to dig for the roots of my NICHOLS and STEARNS families in the area where Crawford, Venengo, and Warren counties meet. I'll be staying in Meadville. I'd appreciate any advice members of this list could supply on researching on-site in northwestern Pennsylvania. A summary of results so far follows: Judah STEARNS was born May 12, 1817 in Vermont. It is possible that the reference on pp. 431-432 of "Genealogy and Memoirs of Charles and Nathaniel Stearns" (Avis Stearns van Wagenen, 1901) is to my ancestor. Van Wagenen notes that "the whole [STEARNS] family seems to have migrated to Pennsylvania" and that the youngest child, John Rice STEARNS, "md., Aug. 30, 1838, Anna Fink of Crawford Co., Pa., where he first settled, then removed to Dallas Co., Ia." On February 4, 1841, Judah STEARNS married Samuel NICHOLS, born April 1817 in New York. The wedding most likely occurred in Crawford County but I have no evidence. The first known child of this union, Sally Marie (Mariah) NICHOLS was born November 7, 1841 in Pennsylvania. Samuel and Judy then moved to Branch County, Michigan where the rest of their children, including my great-grandfather, Lewis Lorenzo NICHOLS, were born. Of their 8 known children, only four survived to adulthood. In 1859 the entire family packed up and moved to Dallas County, Iowa. Samuel NICHOLS died in 1866 and was buried in Bear Creek (Quaker) Cemetery in Dallas County. Other Quaker records also show that the family belonged to the church at this time. It is possible that the family was only casually connected to the Quakers: I have a membership card that shows Samuel to be Methodist Episcopal in 1846 and his son was baptised Methodist in the 1870's (in Iowa). According to an obituary written in 1919 for Lewis Lorenzo NICHOLS, after the death of Samuel, Judy "went to Pennsylvania to be near her people," taking with her Lewis and the two young girls, Emeline and Adelia (the eldest daughter, Sally, had married and stayed in Iowa). Unfortunately, Judy died two years later on December 10, 1868. It is her grave that I have been unable to locate. The remaining three children then scattered. In the 1870 census, Lewis was in Venango County, Cornplanter Twp. but returned to Iowa in 1873. Emeline married John Wagoner and moved to Ohio. Adelia married Frank Nason and produced various Nasons, Woodards, and Hummers, some of whom still live in the area. Jeremy Dwight NICHOLS