Linde, I did "get it " and thought it was amusing and I am sure many more did as well, perhaps because we have had the same experiences ourselves. Thank you for the thorough explanation, though, because it added a lot to the discussion, and the more we share about this sort of thing the more we learn. It was great. Ann In a message dated 12/12/2011 4:51:44 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, scotch Lunney Family <jglunney@eircom.net writes: I've had a couple of emails about this message which have made me think that in trying to be amusing, I didn't manage to strike the notes I meant to. I wanted to say to descendants that if they don't always get a reply to an initial contact, there might be several reasons why, and to point out that things might look different from this side of the Atlantic