One of the listeners asked the following questions of me, when I replied to a question asked on the list and I said that I was there in 1997. saw your message to hurricaned are you from waukesha, wisconsin? were you researching your ancestors? did you go to the genealogy library downtown in the old courthouse? And this is my reply : Hi Bonni, Thanks for the Email, it is great to hear from other people other than family members. You asked some questions and here are the answers. 1--no I am not from waukesha, I was born here in Australia. 2--yes I was researching my family 3-- and I did go to the old courthouse and the 2 girls in there were very helpful to me. Now I will tell you how I got into family history and I hope I don't bore you to much. Back in 1995 I got real sick and I finally said to myself that the last thing I wanted to do was have a look at the birth place of my father, and also where he grow up ( Montana) after his father died . Also to try and find out if my aunts and uncle were still living because after the war (2) dad move here to marry my mother, and he lost contact with his family. Dad never talked about his family back in the States, so I was going off what mum had remembered. I'll just add here that dad died when I was 10, so I know very little. Mum gave me the names of his brother and sisters ( just first names ) and also his army discharge papers and this is all I had to go by. I had 2 years to try and fine out where they were as I was coming over in 97 right or wrong. I wrote to as meny departments in the States that I could and phoned up meny Vanderpool's that I could with no luck and meny dollars spent on this. In the end I started to arrange my trip and I new that I could get a US passport so I applied for it and I needed my fathers birth cert. and I new that he was born in Quitman, GA. so I rang the court house there and a lady ( Elizabeth ) answered the phone which she never does normally, when asked what I was after birth cert. of my dad John Livingston Vanderpool, her reply was Johnny, I know Johnny we grow up together and I explained who I was and the little info I had from the army papers ( his fathers name and mothers maiden name ) it turned out that we were cousins through dad's mothers side. Now Elizabeth helped me out a lot with land records and the will of my fathers, grandfather ( John S.U. Willson) this one "Will" helped my down the track further. Now Elizabeth know of my uncle and aunts but didn't know where they were, so we wrote to each other, but I was still at a dead end. Now from here it was now only 6 months till my trip, so I found out the name of a magazine that you could put a add in. I paced this add in the " Everton's Genealogical Helper" Jan/Feb 97 edition and off all the people that read this mag only 1 person ( Virginia, from Texas ) wrote to me and she gave my the death notice of my grandmother ( died NY.) now in this letter she wrote that the Eliza Vanderpool (nee Willson) was not part of here family line, and that she was after a John S. U. Wilson that had a daughter Elizabeth Ramsay ( nee Willson ), now this is where the will came in, it had Mrs Eliza Vanderpool formally Eliza Ramsay written in it. I wrote back to Virginia and sent here a copy of the will and it also turned out to be that Virginia was my cousin also, but she did not find that second marriage. With the return of here second letter, Virginia asked if there was anything that she could do she would be more then happy to do anything for me. I rang her as I was running out of time to try and find my uncle and aunts. So from here Virginia looked in the phone book (NY) for a George Vanderpool (my uncle) she found one and rang him up and explained who she was and what she was after, the George that she rang was not my uncle but my first cousin ( my uncle's son ). Now all this was about one month before I was to leave, Virginia rang me up and told me the news and that George was very interested in meeting me on my trip over so I jumped at it and rang George up as soon as I could and we talked for about a hour. I found out at this point that Uncle George, Aunt Jennie both passed away, George--July 1969, Jennie--Dec, 1970 and my dad passed away Sep,1969 so it was very sad, but there was still Aunt Frances living in NM. So I rang here up and we had a very tearful reunion on the phone, and I told here that I would be there in two weeks and she just cried as none of the family in the States new of use over here in Australia. Now I am getting back to how I came to be in Waukesha. When talking to Aunt Frances she had told me of the Vanderpool Reunion that was held their in 1970, and that my Grandfather was born in Elkhorn,WI. So on the trip around the States I was going past Waukesha and decided to stop there and the only place I could think of to find out anything was a family history center, so my port of call was the Genealogy Library in the old court house. I arrived there about 4 PM and I asked them if they new of the Vanderpool Reunions that are held their, the lovely girl there just said how much do I won't to know about the Vanderpool family line as they have quite a lot of family info. all that I said was for the moment I would like to know if they had anything on the reunions, so they got out a box which had some old reunion newspaper clipping and we looked at the names that was present at them and then looked in the phone book for some names, and there was only two names that matched, so that night I rang Allen and went through the normal thing of saying who I was and soforth, by 7.30 I was meeting cousins on my Vanderpool side and was planning to go to my first one in 1998 ( which I did attend, a long way to fly but was well worth the trip). Now back to the Library after the newspaper clipping, the girl there asked whether if I would like any more info and I said of course and we made arrangements for the next day at 9 am, and when I got to the library there was 2 full tables of Vanderpool info that the girls there got ready for me to look at when I arrived and I think it was 5 hours latter and a lot of photo coping I left there a very happy person and very grateful for the help that the two girls gave me. Well Bonni this is my story and I hope that I have not bored you to much, and I hope it is not to confusing. It was my pleasure to answer your questions. As I sit and write this message to you, I think I might post it to the list and it might just give other people some help, just don't give up, something will turn up if you try hard enough. I was only 38 and I have found my meny cousins there in the US. But most important is that I found my only living aunt and first cousins and now have a very good family relationship with then all after 38 of knowing nothing of that American Family. Tony Vanderpool Toowoomba Australia