Dear Cousins, Several years ago, I created a unique type of family index. It started out because I found I was spending so much time while on long distance telephone calls looking up info for kinfolks. I was embarrassed for wasting their time and money, so I started writing down EVERY name of ALL my Daddy's family that I knew of and the person's daddy's name so I could "identify" which person the caller was talking about. That didn't help much when they were talking about a particular John Wesley--so I added the person's year of birth. Pretty soon, I had added the place of birth and an ID for the father because I found more than one person by the same name who also had fathers by the same name. I also added a column for nicknames since we all seem to have one and you won't believe the number of folks who don't know their own parents full names nor especially their grandparents. I ended up with this: Aris Sr. 1770 Dobbs Edward Jr. (E)46 Edward Harley Sr. 1810 Darlington William (A)70 John Thomas 1850 Dale John Robert (ED)10 John Wesley ("Wes") 1870 Dale John Thomas (JR)50 Rachel BEASLEY 1771 Dobbs Aris Sr. (E)70 Every person in the Index has the same family name. I later added wives and show their maiden name (if known) in the nickname column in bold letters (and underlined in the printed version). The columns above show the first name; middle name; nickname/maiden name of wives; year born; county where born; first name of father/husband; middle name of father/ husband/ and the "ID" of the father/husband. The ID lists the initials of this person's father and the year this person was born. With this Index system, you can look up any person (that I know of) and then start tracing their direct family line back as far as I know it. For instance, if you wanted to know who the parents of the John Wesley listed above--you would find he was born in 1870 in Dale County and he was the son of John Thomas. Since there are more than one John Thomas, look for one whose father's initials are "JR" and the John Thomas was born in 1850. This will take you back in the direct line as far as possible. By 1980, I had prepared about a dozen such family index records on my kinfolks. I did all this long before I ever used a computer. However, I just never got around to preparing one on our Sasser family until now. I use the Windows "Works" database to create the indexes. I spent the last four years making such index systems for of my several families (mostly for Daddy's side of my family) but until now, had not completed one for our Sasser family (Mama's). I worked all last weekend on typing info and since I had gathered a large amount of new info from Alabama, I selectively entered only info from Alabama and North Carolina from my A, B and J family history sheets books. I already have almost 3,000 names in our new Sasser Family Index now just on those families who lived in Alabama or North Carolina and whose first names begin with these three letters. I have a LOT more typing to do before I have all the info I have in our Family Library entered. It will take several weeks of steady work. But once it is done, it will help me find info for you a lot quicker and easier. I have already discovered "who" some kinfolks were. Such an indexing system works ONLY on same-name families. It does not include descendants of Sasser daughters, for instance. You have to create a different index with multiple family names. I have also created a "Husbands & Wives" Index system. Often, someone knows that "a Sasser married James Smith" but don't know what the name of the Sasser girl is. I can then look under Smith, James and find who she was. At the urging of Daddy's kinfolks who saw my Index on his family at our first national reunion, his family club decided to publish the index on his family as a book--so everyone could benefit from the information. Someday, I hope we can publish our "Sasser Family Index" as a book also. I invite everyone to use this type of indexing system if you are working on a large number of kinfolks of the same name. Your cuz, Robert Earl Woodham