I am constantly being ask how I can find something with such a messy desk (Photo). Well, sometimes it is easy and other times I would do just as well if I stuck my head in the sand. This office (in the garage) is so small that I trip over the trash can every time I get out of my chair.

Yesterday, after repeated requests from Sue, I finally cleaned my desk. I stacked everything up in a neat pile, planning on sifting through everything, one sheet at a time.

There on top was a note that Charles B Wright had sent me last year. I had kept putting it to one side, planning on using it for an up coming article in the newsletter. Here was a perfect time to get started on the Spring Issue, many months behind. A clean desk and a note....

The article was on Sgt Samuel Wright, and his note was explaining why Bloody Brook was incorrect as his place of death. He was right and our records were wrong.

We will get into that later, but first let me explain about my desk. Remember, it was clean last night. At this moment, it has four open large binders, two open small binders, an open Encyclopedia, an open book and a clip board with a lined yellow pad. Everything is open and the desk is a mess again.

What happened!!!!!

While researching "Charlie's Note" on the Northfield Incident, I was searching the database for all the names listed in the article. Most of them were in the database. However, while searching I found a couple of duplications, so I researched them to insure that I would be merging the correct names. While doing that, I found the surname Tyng. That name was on the database, so I searched through the names to see how they were connected. That led me to the Savage Surname, and this led me to the Hutchinson Family. In checking both families in my books, I found that I had not added all the names to the database.

Ann Hutchinson was always an interest to me because many of us have always felt that Capt George Wright may have been a follower or had some connection to the family. Now my mind has completely gone nuts. I find that all of the Savage family was not entered into the database, nor has the Richards Family which I am working on at present.

Out comes all the books. I find that I had entered only one of the children of Thomas Richards and he has 10 children listed. So I begin to enter them. But as I enter them, I check all the marriages to see if I may have them already on the database. This happens many times, where I add a spouse that has no ancestors listed, then later I find when entering a family that I have that child listed.

Confused?.. In checking out Alice, daughter of Thomas Richards, I find that she married a William Bradford. That name rang a bell so I checked the database. I have two... No dates or locations, but there are two. Then I read a note after Alice's name in the book and it says she married William Bradford who was the Deputy Governor of the Colony.

I know we have this William Bradford in the database, but which one. I couldn't find anything in any of my books that would satisfy me so I grabbed the Encyclopedia (1957 version) to see if he was listed. Sure enough there he was. Now most of you probably know all about William Bradford, but to me he had been just a name and number up to this time. Then I read this: 'He has been called "The father of American history" because of his book "Plimoth Plantation".

That rang a bell. Sure enough, about ten years ago I purchased a book " Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647" by William Bradford. Same book, just a little difference in spelling. When I first purchased the book, I found very little of interest to me so I put it on the shelf thinking that some day, I may revisit it. You can bet your dollar that I will be doing some serious reading now.

Oh, by the way, we do have William Bradford in the database. He married first at Amsterdam in 1613, Dorothy May. She came to New England with him on the Mayflower, however she never reached the shores of what was to become the great country of America. It seems that she may have tired of the six weeks sitting on the Mayflower looking at the barren sand dunes of Cape Cod. William took part in the boat expedition that explored Cape Cod, including the one that scudded into Plymouth Bay before a snowstorm and landed, traditionally on Plymouth Rock, on 11 December 1620. On returning to the Mayflower at Cape Cod Harbor, he learned that his " dearest consort, accidentally falling overboard, was drowned in the harbor".

His second marriage was to the "widow Alice Southworth". Alice was the widow of Edward Southworth, by whom she had two children; Constant Southworth and Thomas Southworth. By William Bradford she had Maj William Bradford who married Alice Richards; Mercy Bradford who m. Benjamin Vermayes; and Joseph Bradford who married Jael Hobart.

Widow Alice Southworth was born Alice Carpenter. She was the sister of Priscilla Carpenter who married William Wright, son of Lord John Wright and Bennett Green. Priscilla was the mother of Richard Wright who married Hester Cook.

Now I find that the information from the original book I was working on, was in error. Alice Richards did marry William Bradford, but it was Maj William Bradford, the son of Gov William Bradford. Now you know why I try to check every name before I make any entries.

Just think.... all of this because of a little unnamed creek bed in a swampy area, that was somehow unofficially given the name "Bloody Brook" where there was a massacre that did not involve Sgt Samuel Wright or his son.

After spending all this time on these surnames, maybe I ought to present them to you in this issue.

So now, here I sit, with all these books open, trying to figure out "just what the heck am I suppose to do next".

Problem solved..... I will close my work for tonight and go get my E-Mail and make another stack of papers for tomorrow.