PLEASE, make sure that any data you collect concerning your ancestors is passed down to the next generation.  I have been told by so many people that when their grandparents died, records were destroyed by whoever cleaned out the house, not understanding the importance of the data.  When a family goes through their parents records, they tend to throw out old notes, old letters, photos they can't identify, etc.  These records can mean so much to anyone who is interested in their family history.  They should boxed up, properly marked and added to by the current generation, put in a safe place and passed down to the next generation so that when someone decides to research their family, these old records are available. Most people are not interested in their ancestors until the reach maturity.  I know that I was not interested in my grandparents stories when I was younger, but when my father died and I hit 50, I looked back and realized that I had missed a lot of my ancestors oral history because I "wasn't interested in old stories".  My mother and I went through old photo's that belonged to her mother, my father, her sister and identified each person and made a note on the back of the photo in pencil as to their name, approx date and location.  I then scanned these into my genealogy program and entered the noted data.  I set up a file on my computer and also in my file cabinet.  After I scan these photos I then file them by ancesteral lines.  Thank goodness I did this before my mother's Parkinson's diseased progressed.  If I had waited much longer, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of watching Mom go through these photos and hearing her stories.  Mom is now unable to do this because the dementia caused by Parkinson's Disease has robbed her of those precious memories, but I can now remind her of those stories and help her jog her memory and once again see smile as she recalls a moment in her history. Pat C. Johns in Va.