Fellow Marshall County researchers, Yesterday I received an interlibrary loan copy of: History of the Pan-Handle: Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock, West Virginia. By J. H. Newton, G. G. Nichols, and A. G. Sprankle This book contrasts nicely with: The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families A Genealogical History of the Upper Monongahela Valley (with surname Index) by Howard L. Leckey, Historian and I thought I would tell you how the books differ related to their genealogical use. "Tenmile" is more of a genealogical text, documenting the Tenmile Creek area of Southwestern, PA and it's surrounding area. There is a little history of this area and information on the settlement of particular places, Rev. War units, etc.; but most of the text documents particular people and particular families in the history of this area. Many actual geneaological charts comprise a significant part of this work. Oddly, the copy I have does not include an original copywrite date, but I think Leckey finished it in 1950 or slightly earlier. The second printing of "Tenmile," September 1997, includes a surname index. The text is 667 pages and the surname index is 54 pages so you can see this is not a small work. As "Tenmile" contains a surname index only (easily over 3000 surnames), looking up a particular person is more difficult depending on the number of pages the surmame is referenced. For example, my CHAMBERS appears on only 7 pages so that's not too hard to reference (alhough not so great for finding out info.), while HUGHES appears on more than 110 pages of this work! This translates into six separate Chambers individuals and thousands of Hughes family members. The surmane index also includes families that are documented in bold. If your family is referenced (like HUGHES) many more individuals from your family are included as opposed to individual references. For example, WILSON appears on 47 pages, but there are no WILSON family charts. By contrast KINCAID appears on only 27 pages, but there are 3 pages with a KINCAID family chart. Therefore, there are more individual Kincaids listed than Wilsons. Before I have return in this book, I will write the list with all of the surnames that have family charts associated with them in "Tenmile." "History of the Pan-Handle: . . " By Newton, Nichols, and Sprankle is much more of an academic, historical text than "Tenmile." These authors wrote "Pan-Handle" in 1879, so as a result it contains a much closer in time history of the West Virginia panhandle than if it were written today. A potential downside of this timing is that if your are hunting for events after, say, 1875, they are likely not included. The loaned copy of "Pan-Handle" I just received is a 1990 printing of 450, dense, very small print pages, plus supplement, appendencies, & index. The book begins with the Vikings!, Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many others; extensively covers Native Americans, then later documents the settlement of the pan-handle in fine detail - all reading not for the faint of heart! Fortunately, "Pan-Handle" contains a surname index that includes first names of the surnames listed (55 pages). Descripters about, or references to, individuals can give you a glimpse of our ancestor's lives. For example: "James Standiford, son of Skilton (sp) Standiford, was born in Harford county, Maryland, January 25, 1800, and came to West Virginia with his parents when quite young. James, when a young man, purchased 896 acres of land from John McLee of Wheeling, November 27, 1827, a part of which he cleared and erected a cabin. He was married to Ms. Eliza Smith, July 26, 1827. . . . . . " As you can see, "Panhandle" includes great information about individuals, yet it is more a history of the area. No genealogical charts are included, unlike "Tenmile." Hope this information helps in your search for information and missing links. KC ************************************************************************** Kim Chambers, Ph.D. Instructional Resource Center Institute for Teaching and Learning Voice:  (860) 486-6676 Fax:     (860) 486-1410 E-mail:  [email protected] Address:  U-5RC Homer Babbage Library                369 Fairfield Road                University of Connecticut                Storrs, CT    06268 UConn:  Where everyone majors in learning & all credits transfer to life. ****************************************************************************