I trust you all had a good Thanksgiving - and now the rush is on to Christmas. It seems to me that Thanksgiving is often overlooked and Christmas sales slide over the real meaning of the holiday. Just me... Michael John Neill is an excellent and professional researcher from IL and a recent tip he posted gave me pause because it is true. He stated that there might not have been a divorce of our illusive ancestors. Paraphrasing his tip and expanding. When we find a male ancestor with a new wife, we assume one of two things - the first marriage ended in divorce or the first wife died. Well - there's a third which did happen. It is possible that the husband walked out the door, moved to a different county or state and re-married, without a divorce. Possibly he assumed a different name - possibly not. With the poor communication between states or counties in the earlier times, the spouse often just re-married, lied about his marital status and started his life all over with a new spouse. It is said that this was common after the Civil War; I haven't found the statistics - if there are any. In looking through quite a few of the divorce records of the mid 1800s, the neglected spouse (normally a woman) will state that he left her bed and board and ran off with Susie Homebreaker and moved to parts unknown ... In southern KY, a trip to TN; in northern KY - IN, IL, MO. In eastern and western KY, any border state would do. The new couple would become just another couple moving to their state or county and no one asked who they left behind. And yes, wives did this too! Thankfully, most marriages that did not work out ended in a legal divorce, but then ... Have a great day! Sandi Sandi's Puzzlers: http://www.gensoup.org/gorinpuzzles/index.php Sandi's site: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/ Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=south-central-kentucky