Ask a question...get an answer. Who would have thought this genealogy stuff could be so easy?
Proof?  What do you mean proof? (3/1/00 Now, I understand. Proof is finding your
grandfather's name listed as a beneficiary of your great great grandfather's will.)

Genealogy.com has what are called Family Forums on the web. You find your surname group,
go there and ask your question....and someone may send you your family tree...or at least
the answer to your question. Gee, this is easy. (4/1/00...Oooops. This is not easy, at all!)

MAIN, MCKEE,

HUNT (from Ky), PUGH, BAUM,

WEAVER (from Md), MARTINDALE (from SC), JOHNSON (from TN)

different Weavers (from NY/CT/RI?)

An answer to a query on the GenForum MAIN family discussion group told me I was
looking for a Wm J Main who was the husband of the Surrelda C. Hunt the old newspaper
article had told me about. He too, was the father of my grandfather Main and all those
brothers and sisters of his that were listed in the same article.

I decided to make a trip to Muncie, the county seat of Delaware County, to see what I could
discover and to try and document my relationship with this group of Mains. Shideler is about
10 miles north of Muncie and there was a convenient looking cemetery a few more miles north
of Shideler. As I drove down there from the Chicago area I contemplated how hard it might
be to find specific graves in a large cemetery. As I drove up to the cemetery, it was indeed large and
my heart sank a little. As I made an initial pass around the first of many sections....there it  was!
A large stone with "MAIN." How lucky was I going to get? Perhaps more lucky than I deserved.

.
Not only did I find a stone for my great grandmother Surrelda Main, but I also found the stones of some of my
grandfather's brothers and sisters...but not a stone for my great grandfather Wm J Main. He was being elusive.

Elation in a cemetery on a Sunday afternoon seems like the wrong emotion, but I had just found the majority of
a family I had never really known was mine...until now. Later on that afternoon, I found another cemetery
where two of my grandfather's sisters were buried in the plots of their husband's families.

Monday morning would bring me back down to earth, as the County Clerk's office did not have a record of the marriage
certificate I sought. Easy, I thought, it's just down the road to another county. Shucks, it wasn't there either. Oh well,
it's not far east to the next county and it must be there. NO! Now, I'm desperate. What's wrong? Where could it be?
One last chance, 20 miles north to the only other possible  county. Oops. It's 4:10 P.M. and the Court House hours are
8 AM to 4 PM. I don't live right after all. I tried the local library, they had a county marriage index.....and there it was.
Luck was with me again.
 

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