Dear Wyndell, The reason I bothered to reply to the comments about Leonardo Andrea's work can be very well documented by going to Rootsweb dialing up the Major family, put in John Major and Martha Eliza Epps as his wife and see what you get. By persuing through the files you will find a 1999 publication on this that in great depth quotes Leonardo Andrea's work. If Leonardo had gone to VA and looked in the VA Archives he would have found two books one published in 1915 by James Branch Cabell and the other published in the 1937 by Julian Neville Major on the Major families of VA. The work he did for my Hendricks relative Mary Lee Robbins of Longview, Texas was done in the 1950 and 60s. James Branch Cabell's book has to my knowledge only one mistake in his text which is well documented from official records. Cabell did not have access to a Major family record of 1777 on the will of Bernard Major that was not put into the VA Archives until 1955 by J. T. Major of Charles City Co., Va. These books should have made Leonardo Andrea wonder about his quotes on John Major of Newberry and Abbeville Co., SC being a Pvt in the Revolutionary War from Virginia. At that time John Major was like John Smith is sorting them out, but it can be done. See Virginia Archives file 35792, Major Family Genealogical Notes. A follow up on Julian Neville Major's book has recently also been published in 1998 by James Russell William Major, a retired professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. which offers not much new genealogically but a lot of more details about the King and Queen, Caroline and Culpeper Major families. Being a Major family researcher I has found records where family members searched back to the US Archives in 1900 to solve the mystery of John Major of Newberry and Abbeville Co., SC. However with better mobility and access to records the current SC Genealogy records on this John Major marrying Martha Elizabeth Epps were refuted years ago. One way you do it as there is an Eppes Society in Virginia which has every record conceivable well documented on the Epps Family. Not until 1834 did a Major family member marry an Eppes. SC Major researchers keep saying Martha Elizabeth Epps is the daughter of Richard Epps. Just read the records as to who his daughters married. Also chase down some of the John Major men in Virginia and see where they are and where they went, it is fairly easy with more records accessibility than ever before. However people keep going back to old family histories and using them over and over again never taking the trouble to find out if they are correct. Some people never even get out of SC in their record search. Some people never try to correlate all the various family connections that one family has with other families. Doing this gives you a clue many many time what may not be right or may be wrong. This gives you a hint to dig into real records that have some meat in them such as official records of Counties and states. When I was growing up in the Pendleton area of Anderson Co., SC, there was a person in upper SC who used to write stories of the old times. They were fun to read and to let your imagination run wild but they were not factual. Some of the stories are still available. That is what you find when you read a lot of the old SC family histories. Those who go to SC Genealogy meeting and learn how to do research find the fruits of their work often rewarded with actual records that are often surprising. When you just live in old verbal family history you have just what happened to Moses Hendricks m Susan (Glen?) of Pickens, SC and my John Major of Newberry and Abbeville Co., SC. God Bless. HerbHendricks [email protected]