Hey, Rick and Ginnie, et. al., Your messages make me wonder if y'all's stuff might contain the solution to a great-great-great mystery in my line. Hiram Pickering, my great-great-great grandfather, lived all or most of his life in Hampshire County, VA - which is now of course in West Virginia (Romney is the county seat and only city of any size). It was in that county that a March 17, 1828, marriage bond indicates Hiram was about to marry Sarah Ann POSEY. I've never found a record of the marriage - which I understand is not all that unusual, and that it doesn't mean they didn't marry. For one thing, that's a border county a generation before the Civil War - and a lot of records were lost in that War. For another, it was a time when the keeping of such records was gradually moving from the churches to the civil arena - and there were bound to be gaps during such an evolution. Two later census references, however, give Hiram's wife's name as Sophia, with both saying she was a Maryland native. Hmm. I've worked as if Sophia was a different wife but always kinda wondered if Sophia might have been a nickname, or maybe a pet name, for Sarah. Now, if Sarah or her family were from Maryland, and if your Poseys from Maryland were in (now West) Virginia in the 1820s - gotta ask if either of you has a Sarah Ann or a Sophia, contemporary to Hiram, who was born about 1803, in your database. Yep, my fingers are crossed! Researching these 8 greats: Pickering-Snyder-Roach-Teegardin-Hodges-Evans-Kantner-Shifflet + these contributing Pickering/Snyder lines: Orndorff-Kinsey-Beall And, of course, many more! ONWARD AND BACKWARD! Kurt Pickering La Vergne, TN _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com