Cousins, Since we have several new members, I thought it a good time for a repeat of some basic things. This list is for descendants of James & Jane Bluford Spence of Augusta Co. VA and Burwell and Rebecca Spence of Carroll Co. VA. We invite any interested person who has reason to think that their elusive ancestor may have descended from either of these couples. We also invite anyone whose ancestor was in South West Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina, since access to these regions was gained by passing through SW Virginia. We also extend the invitation to descendants of Moses Spence, who was born in Virginia before moving to Georgia. So that we can maintain control of our objectives to center in Virginia research, I will again, as I have in the past, advise anyone who is new to researching the SPENCE surname to please check the archived messages on Barbara Beal's primary SPENCE list at Rootsweb. Barbara has years, if not decades, of Spence research behind her and is the utmost authority on the Spence surname. Her list is in it's 4th year of messages, and our list here at Spence-Bluford is only about 6 months old. Barbara is working on a book on the Spence name and has carried the line of David Spence of Somerset Maryland back into the 14th century. I always recommend to try Barbara's list first. Barbara can sometimes tell you exactly which branch a person belongs to, thereby saving years of wasted research effort. Please check the Spence archives at : <A HREF="http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl">RootsWeb Mailing Lists -- Interactive Search</A> This address will work for any surname that has a list on Rootsweb, including our Spence-Bluford list. The Spence-Bluford list began with 5 ladies and has expanded to almost 40 people as of today. Our old list was located at : <A HREF="http://www.egroups.com/list/vaspence/">Vaspence</A> You may want to view some of the old messages on the VASpence site, although be cautioned that some of the earlier research notes have been since corrected. Please feel free to ask us about an old issue that you may find. Lastly, since Rootsweb is totally free to researchers as we, and doesn't charge fees to view it's contents, please help Rootsweb with a donation. Also, when you transcribe documents that are in the public domain, please type them in text mode and contribute them to the USGenWeb project, most often to the county in which your ancestor lived. Since you traced your ancestor to that county, other researchers will find their way to the same county, thereby increasing your chances of meeting cousins and other interested persons of the surname. Any file contributed comes up in a GenWeb search, again increasing your chances of contact. If everyone would share their research efforts, great strides could be made. In closing, this list was and continues to be informal. We sometimes tell jokes and act quite silly to relieve the pressure of our research frustrations. We are one big family after all. We are happy to have you and hope you learn from our group ! Thanks, Carolyn Spence Listowner