I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by the line going dead. I haven't been online for at least 3 weeks. I am kept very busy looking after my elderly parents.

We were researching about 9 years ago. My mother has a connection to Judge James Semple (1768-1834) and she was curious about ancestors/descendants. She didn't want to contact anyone but was just curious. We never meant to be intrusive. My mother is now 86 years old and has dementia so her questions are now rather moot. Please forgive my intrusion. I responded to your message out of habit as it were - it was really my mother's query and I was just helping her do the computer research years ago.

In truth, John & Marjorie's descendants are none of our business and I'm sensitive to that fact.

However, if you are interested in any research I have regarding James Semple, I would be more than willing to share. For instance, I have a photos of James' son Henry & his wife Emily's gravestone and their house in Montgomery, AL, James Semple's house in Williamsburg, VA, & James' father's church in New Kent Co, VA. And I found a wonderful article about Ellen Barry in the 1980 Washington Post archives.

But my mother's connection to Ellen's generation would be quite remote and I never did grasp the something-th cousin however-many-times removed concept. You can say I cast a wide net when I began researching and then narrowed my focus. So I found more than I really needed.

I knew someone via message boards, one on our Shadden side, that some 30 years ago began searching for all of the descendants of one Thomas Shadden, died 1770 or so, had 13 children, and most had as many themselves in turn. She said she had 4 file cabinets full of research. I really can't imagine. We were more interested in going backwards - and all the various aunts, uncles & cousins we stumbled across were more footnotes to our research. And although I could have delved back into ancestors in Scotland, England, Wales & Ireland - frankly it was enough to know we came from there. At some point it gets a bit remote.

My father's 5th great grandfather McMains/McMahon, according to one family tree, in 1790 had 79 grandchildren. He had 20 children of his own (of 1 wife). I mean, it's astounding but truly, there is only one of his 20 that we are interested in and only one of the 79. At some point it becomes not only remote but unwieldy to grasp.

I have recently been in contact with a fella that is related to Mary McAnerney Semple. His grandmother was her youngest sister I believe. He has a great bit of info and some photos related to the McAnerney family. I will suggest to him to message you and you two can take it from there if you wish. In particular he is searching for a film that was made of Ellen Semple & Philip Barry's wedding in 1922 as I believe his mother would have attended their wedding?

Pardon the verbosity but there you have it.