In a message dated 8/4/2003 4:07:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: > Just what I said...primary and secondary information, when gathered in > sufficient quantity, constitutes proof (s) or make it singular...proof... > Margaret, Paul and all, I just want to point out the obvious. The definition of "sufficient quantity", also must include "quality". When you are dealing with names common in a particular area, then the amount that equals "sufficient" is increased exponentially, and the definition of "quality" MUST, in my humble opinion, include deeds and other records so that you can pinpoint these people on a map and show that the four John Martins, three, Samuel Martins, six William Martins lived in different areas, etc. (Just ask Linda Sparks Starr on the Johnsons!) Over a year ago, we Bentleys in Amelia Co. VA, had a new researcher (now sadly in Brussels Belgium) who got all the documents (deeds, everything) and transcribed them in originals. We studied them, and concluded that there were two possible separate Bentley families in Amelia Co. -- They lived 30 miles apart, and all the confusion in genealogies results in the fact that both families had ONLY these names in the mid 1700s -- Samuel, William and John. The above two families have been intertwined in genealogies, confused in later migrations to Halifax & Brunswick Co. as one and the same (exacerbated by some marriage abstracts in the latter). This Bentley line is very far back in my genealogy as surname goes (of course contribution to my genetic makeup is equal with everybody else!), but the whole experience was just incredible when we realized that between Amelia, Brunswick & Halifax we had wayyyy...too many Bentleys to be from one guy -- the one with the WILL!! Samuel d. ca 1794 in Amelia Co. As a result, I had to unhook myself from a Richmond Co. Daniel with son Samuel...etc. Janet