Hi Gang, Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas ! I'm awake and kicking. I've been pursuing the Keens and Baldwins, looking for any links to Spences. Nothing concrete yet. To add a word about Don's post of having lots of paper and still missing the link, I do sympathize. Betcha I have 10 reams of paper.... But, it's all in a days work if we want to get anywhere. For a bit of 'NEW" news, Barbara of the main SPENCE mailing list asked for info on William of Southampton Co, VA, and I answered her. When she gets back home, I await her reply. IT seems she found something. I also asked if Barbara was intending to set up a SPENCE GENCONNECT board on Rootsweb. I've offered to handle the duties, if Barbara doesn't want to. Most of you are familiar with the GENFORUM boards. GENCONNECT will be the same format, only hosted at Rootsweb. I wish ( although I know it will never happen) that everyone in the world would deal with Rootsweb. Then we would have everyone and everything all in one place, instead of having to search the web in forty kazillion places looking for our ancestors. Rootsweb developed the field of online genealogy and is the Grandaddy. There are no enforced fees to use Rootsweb, you can look at all their information any time you please. Donations are accepted to support the systems and start as small as twelve dollars a year for all that information. Please support them. I'm really happy to see the GENCONNECT system growing. With the surname helper search engine built in, you can find a name really easy, and most states and counties are converting their query boards over to GENCONNECT, or at least maintain a board. Everyone needs to check and see if your surnames have been set up on a board yet, and if not, maybe sponsor it yourself. Our dear cousin Jim has a pro researcher digging around in Surry Co. NC for those Spences, and we'll wait and see what turns up there, before we continue on the Surry treasure hunt. I'll be going there myself real soon, as soon as these ice storms pass. At least we had a "white Christmas" here !! ( Got one inch of snow on Christmas Eve) Until next time, Carolyn