In a message dated 12/01/04 5:41:24 PM US Mountain Standard Time, Hdanw@aol.com writes: If this family--Benjamin Marmon--was from Northampton Co., it is quite doubtful that they are related to the Moorman family of Albemarle Co., VA. Although our ancestors migrated a great deal, it is likely the distance between the two counties gave these two families different origins. On the contrary, it is entirely consistent with Virginia history and geography that a family would have traveled that far (about 120 miles as the crow flies, but farther by water, which is how most of the trip would have been made). In fact, the actual distance traveled would have been less than that traveled by most of the earliest Fauquier settlers, who came up the Potomac and then headed south. Our English ancestors traveled a vast distance across the Atlantic, and then made the mistake of planting themselves in a swamp. Tidewater Virginia was really not the best place to make a home -- because of weather, disease and soil conditions -- but it took several generations for many of the early planters to figure that out. Those who could, moved on to the piedmont, which was a far better place to make an 18th Century home. Some of them followed the Rappahannock and Potomac to the northwest, and others followed the James to Charlottesville (Albemarle County). One example of why Virginians wanted to move inland and upriver is provided by this slice of Fauquier history: A cholera epidemic in the Tidewater area led to the Virginia legislators' decision to meet elsewhere during the spring of 1849. They convened on June 1 in the ballroom of the luxurious Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Hotel near Warrenton. While cholera raged downriver and while economy-minded newspaper editors fumed, the legislators had a splendid opportunity to combine business and pleasure.