Mr. Yingst, Thank you for your pertinent and thoughtful posting. I believe it is a given that in genealogy we must be satisfied with the evidence we discover about parentage whether or not it is absolutely, biologically accurate. It is about the best we have to go on. You are completely correct in your observation that we have few means to be absolutely positive about our ancestry. And the more generations that have gone before us, the more difficult it is to be certain. In genealogy we muddle along relying upon the very best that is available to us to establish truth by using primary sources if possible and relying on secondary ones that are considered to be reliable. However, to paraphrase what you wrote, family is a concept that involves more than biological kin. In genealogical research I attempt to be (and am fairly successful) totally objective. Whether or not I descend from a horse thief, yeoman farmer, European crowned head or any or all of these is rather immaterial. I am simply a seeker of the truth, whatever that may be. But I am also very interested in trying to reconstruct lives that were lived based on my knowledge of the historical context in which those lives were lived. I am interested in the possibilities, and that always involves families, however family is defined. Janelle Via McKown