In a message dated 4/3/2006 7:27:40 PM Eastern Standard Time, james_l_stokes@yahoo.com writes: <<Hi Joan, If you think Catharine Dietrich was born in Earl Township then the question becomes, how would she meet and marry someone that lived 40 or 50 miles away ?>> Jim- I don't know for sure that she is the right Catherine--she is merely the only one I found anywhere born in Lancaster County that matched the dates on census records. Samuel SMITH's occupation was stonemason and I suppose it would be possible that his trade took him to locations miles from his home in York. It is also possible that Catherine was born in Lancaster County and raised in York County. Since I've not been able to locate her on census records prior to 1860, I can't really say for sure. << Does Samuel Smith show up on the tax lists for Earl Twp ?>> No--the SMITHs show up on tax lists in Dover Twp. in York County. << Did Catherine's father or one of her brothers move to York County ? Do you know when the Jacob Dietrich of Earl Twp. died ? Might he have mentioned his daughter by her married name in his will ? Where was Jacob living when he died ? These are the questions you can check into in order to build a case that it was his daughter that married Samuel Smith. Jim>> Yes--I know--it has only been recently that the SMITHs were located on census records in York County (after 15 years of searching for them). This means it has only been a short time that I had an approximate birth year for Catherine. On two censuses censustaker errors (as opposed to transcription errors) resulted in the family names being incorrectly listed in indexes. So my search for this part of the family has only just begun. Joan