I just wanted to say hello to all of you, because you're all my cousins! <WG> Someone on another list had a question regarding the proper term used for the loss of numerical ancestors which occurs to the descendant when related persons are married. The responses were interesting, ranging from a joke about calling it incest to those who seemingly were in denial that they could possibly have had ancestors who were the product of interrelated marriages. The math is pretty cut and dry, however, and these links lead to interesting articles on the topic of the Genealogically coined term: "Pedigree Collapse" Enjoy! http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/usenet/sci.anthropology/archive/january-1 995/0213.html http://www.generations.on.ca/genealogy/pedigree.htm CAUTION: The first link which leads to a mail list / message board for anthropology can be very distracting! I got lost clicking link after link, reading a couple of different topic threads. Could be very divisive to genealogy research, as you may find yo urself reading through the day, and not tending to those ancestor hunts! Smiling to all her kin - the WI Grant List... Di