Good grief! I don't usually get into these things, but this seems completely ridiculous to me. That letter was written by an ancestor of someone who belongs to the list... perhaps an ancestor of many of us. My own Ratliff's were from Arkansas, as was the author. The letter was not of a personal nature to begin with, but was the authors view of his own family history. If we were not interested in family histories, we wouldn't be on this list, would we? I for one, very much appreciate the posting of that letter and would love to see more of the same type of document posted to the list. Not only did it indicate that we are not the first generation to try to trace the histories of our families, but it gave us some insight into how that information might have been conveyed from cousin-to-cousin in the past, as some of us still do today. That is the purpose of this list, is it not, to share information? A glimpse into the lives of our ancestors is a rare treat and is the greatest of the treasures I find as I research. The dry facts look good on the chart, but it's the things like letters and journals that fill out the history and let us see the kind of lives our ancestors actually lived. Whether the information included in the letter is factual is really beside the point here. As researchers, it's up to each of us individually to determine what we accept as factual. The letter is valuable in it's own right, as something produced by the hand of an ancestor and the owner of the letter was very generous in sharing that with us. -- Janet Reaves [email protected] ____________