Hello,

Several folks have commented on the lack of responses to their postings. I wish to comment on that.

Many, including myself, are not regular or recurring visitors to these boards in the conventional sense. "Years" may pass between visits, not days or months. Also, most of us are not using the same e-mail address that we may have posted with originally.

Americans have come to expect instant gratification, but family researchers who have been doing this for years are much more familiar with long term communications resulting in a reply that appears in their mailbox years after their original posting. Which is why I chose to reply to the original message in this thread.

Also, FYI, published genealogies are vulnerable to dropped family lines, as anything else created by humans. Below are my two main sources on the descendants of John Scovil.

Homer Worthington Brainard, editor, A Survey of the Scovils or Scovills in England and America; Seven Hundred Years of History and Genealogy (1915; reprint 14 Derby Square, P.O. Box 778, Salem, MA, 01970, 508-745-7170: Higginson Book Company, 1992).

Frederic Wayne & Edna Cleo (Bauer) Barnes, compiler, The Genealogy of Thomas Barnes of Harford, Connecticut, 1615-2001 (1001 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202-3897: Gateway Press, Inc., 2001).

However, the second book completely dropped a family branch that included my family, through an oversight in recording family members from my great-great-grandfather who married a Scoville. I contacted the compilers and informed them of their error, then provided them the information I had collected down to my present generation. They were gracious enough to add the information to their database and sent me inserts for their published books.

So, to everybody who complains about the lack of response, be patient! Five or ten years later, you may get a reply!


Roy Sprunger

John Scovil(1), Benjamin(2), Edward(3), Micah(4), Enoch(5), Edward(6), Mary (Scoville) Robinson(7), Merton(8), Lyle(9), Dula (Robinson) Sprunger(10)