Dear Fauquier County, Virginia Genealogist, I first started researching my Fauquier County, Virginia families in 1969. Next October I will have been studying Fauquier County thirty five years. It is amazing how little I really know. I would love to have the ability to have John Gott and others in Fauquier County review my research. I would love to be able to walk Carter's Run and talk to the old timers. So many are now gone. I especially have enjoyed communicating with several members of the list who are distant cousins. We have all benefited as being members of Fauquier County, Virginia USGENWEB. We have listed books that are available on Fauquier County on the web site. Several times a month I get emails from others who have not taken advantage of the information on the web site. We live in a time where genealogist simply want to copy the research of others. All of us are guilty of this. To the newby genealogist I say jump in go to the LDS libraries, order library through interlibrary loan, travel to Fauquier County and just enjoy doing research on your family. We need to give and share more information - we seem to be holding back so much when we could be sharing so much more. For goodness sake copy and make your own mistakes. Nevertheless it must be said that those who benefit the most from research are the ones who dig into the records and digest and sleep with those records. Family history is a life long avocation that makes the most sense after many years of pondering the informaiton that we have. To newbies who are not ready to make this sacrifice you will not receive the rewards of spending years doing research. Sorry but that is how it works. I recommend pondering as we receive great insights into our research. We want to connect just one more family and then one more. As I get older I will be the first to admit that I have gone back and disconnected my self from family lines that may be mine or perhaps they are not mine. My Mollie Burgess rape line and my French Utterback Buckner adoption line drive me crazy. I dislike saying that I am making genalogical deductions in my family. Rape or illegitimacy confuse our minds 150 to 200 years later. I have researched the Blackwell and Buckner family for years and will never really know if I am related to them for sure. I believe that I have blood relations to both family lines and their collateral families. Yes I go to bed confused just trying to recreate what happened during the Civil War when Mollie Burgess was raped by a man named Smith who was from a wealthy family who lived near Alton Farms, Fauquier County, Virginia. Would like to go back to Fauquier County on 28 Feb 1863 when my great grand father was born? Can anyone help make this happen? Not sure that I would really like that! Yes I would! Perhaps it is good that I live in Arizona (yes 75 today - my oranges and grapefruite are just not getting ripe). If I lived in Fauquier County, Virginia would the blue blood families welcome this West Virginia Hillbilly who is guessing about his ancestor who was raped and another ancestor who is working an adopted line. It is my opinion that many of us have much more information than we are willing to share. We want to deal the information out in small parcels, almost like we are baiting our distant cousins who just started their research. We should be more willing to share the 40- 50 pages or hundreds of pages of information instead of one paragraph at a time. I agree that when doing roll call we do need to give more information. Personal web sites and family histories are a great way to provide information for us to share our family information. I have learned that our basic human nature is not going to change. (I wish it would) After all it is often a lot more work that we are willing to put forth. When we had look up night I believe that only 5-6 of our 450 member group participated in sharing information. Too bad. To the experienced family history researcher I say have patience with the newbies. That may mean touch love by letting them do their own searching. I believe that all members of our group have been helped by others on the list. We need to continue that tradition, with kind helpful assistance, especially at this time when many of us are celebrating the birth of our Savior. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone on the Fauquier County, Virginia mailing list. Jim Burgess Fauquier County, Virginia USGENWEB