Dear George, You can belong to the *Black Sheep* group--but I forget their *official* name. But I don't know whether you have to be a direct descendant or not. I keep stumbling -- with the help of the internet --and sometimes just browsing in books -- upon unexpected incidents in the lives of my ancestors, also. Helen M. Leary, noted North Carolina genealogist-author-lecturer, etc, says *collect the neighbors*. I do that and that is how I sometimes stumble upon these events. The Brooklyn Public Library has digitized/put on the internet old issues of the Brooklyn Eagle. As my direct ancestor, long divorced from his first wife [and four children], ended up in Brooklyn after serving many years in the First Cavalry, and I knew his date of death, garnered from his *Old War* pension record, I started looking for an obituary. Lo and behold, his name occurred in a headline something to the effect *Was John S..... Clubbed to Death?" The coroner suspected he had been beaten by the police as the result of his alcoholic state. (What else is a German expected to do? Drink soda pop?) My spouse, an amateur historian and great novel reader, who is of Irish descent, said he suspected Irish policemen may have been involved. E.W.Wallace ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour