Does anyone know of any problems with the Rootsweb e-mail surname/location lists? I am on maybe two dozen of the lists. I have not gotten any postings in roughly the last 24 hours which is highly unusual. Even on "slower" days I get around 10 of something and on "busier" days over 25 or so. I have checked with my local ISP provider and everything seems to be working. Test messages coming through from ISP and I can get on the Rootsweb home page, etc. On one of these South Carolina Lists (Barnwell, Aiken, Edgefield) someone in Dallas (Texas?) was recently asking for suggestions/information about getting ready for a research trip to South Carolina. I think it was on the Edgefield list if my memory serves me correctly. 1. Subscribe to at least two of these lists, if not all three. There was a lot more migration/marriage/estate buying of families back and forth than I have realized especially if they came and stayed for several generations and lived near the county line. Same idea would go for other bordering counties. 2. At South Carolina Archives, to save time, unless you just have to have a copy of that record to take with you or use the rest of your research visit, run a tab, write a check at the end of your research day/trip, and have the copies sent to you later. Don't waste your time trying to make all of your own copies. The SC staff can get better copies because they have more practice, etc. 3. At the courthouses hand copy the index references and then order the pages by mail from the SC archives. SC Archives will send the page copies if you have the reference pages, but they will not look up a lot fo "stuff" for you. Last time I got something it was 40 cents a page, but it may have gone up. Same thing goes for making copies at the three courthouses. Don't waste your time making your own copies in Edgefield at the courthouse from the microfilm or at the Tompkins library of the county records unless you just need a few pages to have to take with you for reference, etc. I have not been to the Aiken courthouse in years. For the Edgefield Courthouse you can no longer handle the early original records like we could back in the 1960's and 1970's. Everything is on microfilm, at least those I was researching were. When I was in the Barnwell courthouse about two years ago, I could handle the orginal records from the package and box numbers. Copy those right on the copy machine there which was a rather fast procedure. I was working mainly in the early records and estate office. Copies were cheaper, too, than the archives. In Barnwell District/County I have a double Toole line from Isaac Toole of the upper Three Runs area now in the Savannah River Project. All the cemeteries of that area have been done. There has been a book done on Ellenton and one on Myers Mill. Both I think out of print. Proof is lackling for the wives maiden names on my direct line. Isaac, Stephen b. c. 1780 d. 1863, Richard I. Manning Toole b. 1826, served in Company H 14th SC Inf. Private, d. 1895 buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia. I have a data base, genealogy program of a lot of related families. Manning moved to Georgia 1870-1875 (Oconee/Greene County) then back to Augfusta c. 180-1895. In Edgefield I am researching Carpenter and allied families from the Trenton area. All there by the 1790 census. Whitlock, Booth,Hatcher, Swearingen,Randel (various spellings)and maybe Christian and a Roberson/Robertson/Robinson, etc. Vivian Toole Cates, Rt. #2 Box 52-A, Alto, Texas 75925-9607 1-936-858-3801 http;//www.inu.net/vcates