Ian, You were right - I did think of more resolutions! 23. I shall encourage my descendants to marry only more descendants of mine. Why add outsiders to the perfectly good gene pool? 24. Should my daughters marry, I will advise them to marry a man with the same surname as our own (whether he be related to us or not.) In fact, same goes for my sons. 25. I resolve that, if Heaven forbid I pass away this year, that my family will be instructed to have a fitting obituary placed in the local newspaper. All my daughters should be referred to as Mrs. So-and-so with no identifying given names or initials. My birth year and place should be fairly close, but not exact. Any other details they are unsure about they just make up off the top of their heads. 26. This year, we should all endeavour to make up as many new misleading stories as possible about kinsfolk that went away from here. If George went to Northamptonshire, England, married twice, had 12 children and immigrated to Wyoming, USA, let's just say "He went to Yorkshire, had a family and all contact was lost with him." (Note: This one really happened!) 27. If I can, I will be even less tolerant of my family's misdeeds this year and "disown" even more bad apples this year. After that, we will speak of them no more. 28.Illegitimacy is to be stamped out, in this family, by my efforts. Any "little surprises" will be (a) raised by other relatives and marked as their own on any official documents or (b) given an appropriate surname - whatever one suits - which can always be switched with another surname at a later date. Surnames don't cost anything - take as many as you like! 29. On the subject of names, middle names are free too. I will advise my family members to add another middle name every so often. 30. Life is too short to be stuck with a dull name. I will try to "live a little" by calling myself alternately Jack, Jock, Johnnie, Iain, Jonathan, J., what have you over the coming year and will consider aquiring 2 or 3 Gaelic nicknames too. With any luck, after a while, I will only be known locally as one of these nicknames - everyone will forget I was ever John! Ha Ha! I'm sure there are MORE still! lol Mary Fletcher Harris Canada