this wasn't going to be my first posting here ... but here goes anyhow :) Bev wrote: "Even death records may or may not have correct information. Certainly the information is only as good as the reporter can make it ... " << snip >> this touches on a death certificate I received for my great grandfather [my dad's mother's father] he was divorced in 1911 before my grandmother was a year old, and died in 1923 ... after nearly TEN year search and finally getting hooked-up with the internet in Dec. 1999 ... I located a half brother of my grandma's ... that she had only hear about, but never got to meet him :( turns out the lady listed as my great grandfather's mother on his death record, WAS actually his fathers mother :/ the father was the informant on the record ... so we can only guess that the person filling out the form asked poor "old" Samuel Hall for his name, and then might have said, "and the mother" ... and Samuel gave his own mothers name by mistake :( Ken Hedgpeth ~ Altadena -> Pasadean, CA ~ USA searching for all H*D*P*TH variants World Wide ! http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hedgpeth/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .