About 26 years ago one of my sisters sent me a bundle of papers with notes my mother had collected on our family. My mother had tried to build a genealogy from interviewing older members. I decided to try and use the internet to see what I could find. There was a note about a Great Grandfather with information in a book., so I searched for him, Darius Willett. WHAM! Just my luck, someone had done a major reasearch project on the Willetts going back to Jamestown, VA and my father's name was in the list. Now I had to learn what a gedcom was all about. That was my father's paternal line so what about his mother's side? I grew up knowing and loving my Great Grandmother, Ada Howard. The notes told me she was born in Pall Mall and married in Hill Ham, TN. Needless to say, I found Pall Mall right away but "Hill Ham" took a few months and some odd clues. Soon I found myself spending several hours a day searching and I was thourouly hooked. There were names I had heard as a child like Bry Howard but there were no notes. I found some in Overton County and a graveyard near Clarksville, AR. It has been a great journey. I never expected to find so many relatives, living and dead. I never expected to learn so much history, how little was to be found in books and how much my ancesters were a partof it all. And, I never expected to find so many nice people on the internet. I follow the Fentress list. Not too many relatives there but mostly to listen to the stories and people. Tom Johnson