Good morning family, A big welcome to our new SUMPTER family members who have recently joined us! We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your ancestor's lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We all share the same goals of wanting to find our families. Sometimes do you get so tired and frustrated from years and years of searching for your ancestor. Have you spent the last 1, 5, 10 or 20 years looking for your ancestor and are no closer now than when you started the search? We've sent the same query with the same questions to several historical societies and continually get the same negative answers. We've looked in census, probate, cemetery, military, Bible and church records to no avail. An additional source we have is each other. How many of us have small libraries at home that might have the answers one of the SUMPTER family needs? Have you checked yours at home for anything that might help the family? We need to continue posting those hidden records. Please, don't stop. That one little record, that one little paragraph, that one little scrap of information you shoved in a box under the stack of books, that certificate you received that wasn't yours after all, all those census extractions and cemeteries you read -- we need to dig all that material out and put it on the list. We came together to get answers and break down our brick walls. But, as the saying goes, "When you give, you receive." It's a principle that has never failed. Helping someone work out their lines might just uncover the fact that you're both cousins! Working together and sharing brings each of us a step closer to the big link we have waited for. Each of us on this list could be that lost link. Posting everything we know about our families is the only way our new members will know who we're looking for. So, what do you say family? Let's all get busy and start posting and talking again? After all, isn't finding our lines what brought us all together in the first place and gave us all this reason for sharing, for caring? Thanks everyone for making this such a great list! Without you, it wouldn't be. Warm regards, Jim Young List Moderator and RootsWeb Donor