Dear Carol, Thanks for the reply. There are, indeed, more Abbotts "than you can shake a stick at" in Maine. There is even a town named Abbott. I'm disadvantaged in my search for history as I don't know any of the family links. I grew up in Maine learning the local lore of mining from older miners, many of who have passed on. Wish I could ask questions now, that I didn't then. Many names I heard of turn out to be intermarried with others. Now am beginning to think that there is only one big family. I'm sure you have subscribed to MaineRoots, Abbott, and other lists. Haven't tackled to Abbotts yet. Most of the ones meaningful to me are from the Rumford area. The mine I did my thesis on is located on Halls Ridge. Henry Hall, the discoverer of the deposit, married Joshua Abbott's daughter. One of the prominent miners was Dean Abbott McCrillis, etc. Spent some time trying to find the parentage of Wallace Dickerson Nevel. Visited his son and saw the 1933 passport indicating he was born in Hudson, Michigan, instead of Andover, Maine as his son believed. Chased the lead all over the place. The birth, in 1887, was not recorded in the two counties adjacent to or containing that town. However, Dickerson was a common surname of central Michigan. Checked a lead of Dickersons living in Hudson, Ohio as I suspected it was not a coincidence. No luck. A lead for his mother's name paid off. She was Addie Small, born in Vermont, but lived in Upton, Maine. A Civil War diary on the Andover Historical website indicated that the Small family was friendly with the Richards family and there was a "Wallace" Richards just a few years older than Addie Small and probably a close friend. A search of the census of 1900 indicated that there was no one living in Maine with the name "Nevel" and it seems that the family name was entirely synthetic, but there may have been, yet another family friend to remember in the naming of her child. W. D. Nevel's father is known to be Billy Sole who operated a sporting camp in Oquossoc, Maine, where Addie worked as a housekeeper. Coincidentally, W. D. Nevel met his first wife at his father's camps about 1924. His first wife was Suszie Farrington. Now Oliver C. Farrington is another man I'm trying to find out about. He had no children, but there are many Farringtons in Maine. O. C. Farrington traded minerals with Edmund Bailey of Andover, Maine. (Saw his label in Bailey's collection when I was a student at Univ. Maine.) {Ed Bailey was Nevel's foster parent.] Farrington was a curator of minerals in Chicago. His wife was the sister of the curator of minerals at the Smithsonian and both of them were from Maine. Shall I go on? Anyway. I search as hard as I can for a while and get worn out. Abandon a line and return later with renewed vigor. My current object is Clarence Leslie Potter. Maybe a family member will be signed on to the list and we'll make contact. Maybe someone from Clementsport or Yarmouth will have a neighbor who knows a friend... Hope springs eternal. I'll wait some months and pick up the torch again. Best Regards, Van Best Regards, Van