Thanks List for the many answers concerning the distance most swains would travel for a bride. The answers seem to state that 3-5 miles is the outside amount, but that circumstances could dictate otherwise. In the Northeast, towns are about 8 miles apart and a beau would travel that distance for a dance or Church Social, if the local pickin's were poor. Once a marriage was made, however, other beaus were quick to look for sisters of the bride, and there was an influx of new blood which was good for the gene bank. Now, for another question. In Wilmer Turner's book, "Old Homes and Families in Nottoway" there are pictures of William Fitzgerald and his wife Sarah Epes Fitzgerald, shown on the page opposite Page 143. Does anyone know where the original of these are today? Thanks again, List. Ken Larsen

I have been asked why cemeteries are/were so close together throughout the early South: Though there are no sources at my hand, it does seem to be true that cemeteries (including churchyards) in the South, on the average, are about 3 miles apart, that being the maximum distance to which folks could go afoot or on an animal following a hearse or wagon carrying the body, then attend services, fill the grave, visit with other mourners present, and return home in time to attend to livestock chores, prepare an evening meal, and yet be inside at dark (a "must" for women and kids in early times). I would note that here in the mountains of Tennessee, cemeteries are often closer together and so more accommodating of the difficult travel then, and even now. Someone tell us: is it the same in the North and on the Great Plains??? Thanks. Paul