Irony of ironies. . . My great great grandfather, John Frank JOHNSON, actually WAS the clerk of McDowell court in the late 1800s. His son James Nathan, my great grandfather, was his assistant for a few years. Now, in McDowell census records, John Frank was listed as "illiterate" in 1870, but was the clerk in 1880. Hmmm. . . with limited skills of written language, did he start some very bad record-keeping procedures that remain today? %-} Perhaps I should (tongue in cheek) apologize for my ancestors' continuing failures in this regard! Rees Chapman