Self Seekers Newsletter, April 2000

SELF SEEKERS:

THE SELF FAMILY ASSOCIATION QUARTERLY ONLINE NEWSLETTER SUPPLEMENT

Editors
Tim W. Seawolf Self    
Barbara Ann Peck
   [email protected]
Volume 3, no. 2   April, 2000
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WELCOME

Welcome to the ninth issue of the quarterly online newsletter supplement to "Self Portraits: The Self Family NetLetter," the Website dedicated to Self family research at http://www.selfroots.com

You are receiving this newsletter because you were kind enough to join "Self Seekers: The Self Family Association." We appreciate all of your contributions, large and small, and we hope you will continue to support our page, our surname list, and this newsletter.

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SPRING IS SPRUNG

Despite the abominable gas prices, many of our cousins will be taking genealogy trips this summer. We hope that you'll take plenty of photos, copy lots of records, and be sure to share your discoveries with everyone in the upcoming issues of this newsletter. We'd especially love "diaries" of your trip--photos can accompany any writings, or just articles and pictures by themSelfs will do.

In the meantime, we are proud to be a very large repository of Self information. With three domains, a second Webpage at RootsWeb, a Surname Forum and a suite of cluster pages at RootsWeb (see the link on "Self Portraits"), a Listserv, a Collaboration Surname list on the LDS "Family Search" site, a site on "My Family.com," SelfSite at RootsWeb, Family Record Online, well over 5,000 pages of connected and unconnected Self lines, and over 990 valid e-mail correspondents willing to share information, we are well able to help you with your family research. We are also the Surname Resource Center (SRC) for the surnames of Self, Selfe, and Selph.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

We would like to have your gedcom so that we can add your information to our database. With your permission, we will also list and distribute your gedcom on request (but only with your permission). Please send us gedcoms so that we can start a library that will help others. If you've already submitted one, kindly re-send so that we will have the latest information. We would appreciate being kept informed of new family members as well as other changes.

If you haven't joined our Self Surname Mailing List yet, please subscribe. Instructions will be found on the main page of our Website. Note that we also host the Swindle, Eden, and Edens Surname Lists as well as listservs for Erath County, TX., King County, TX., Bossier Parish, LA., Murray County, GA., Grayson County, TX., and Clay County, NC. In addition, we host the King County, TX, Murray County, GA, and Clay County, NC USGenWeb sites. Our three county sites join "Self Portraits" in featuring a handy search engine for locating topics discussed in previous messages posted to their corresponding listserv--please click on the button directly beneath the instructions for joining the listserv on the main page of each site.

Visit our supplemental Self site at your earliest convenience. This site is for Self Seekers only. Feel free to change or update your own profile to enable services that will be of most use to you. For example, you cannot send e-mail unless you provide your e-mail address in the profile. We would especially like you to upload photographs and articles to this site.

We would like to thank Cousin Betty Ann for her kindness in initiating and hosting a SELF Chat during the month of March. There were many visitors to the Chat Room--even on the first Sunday at very short notice. The chats were given an extension, but we failed to find someone to host them when Betty Ann was unable to do so. If anyone is interested in hosting a chat via the Huntsville Chat group, please let us know, and we'll do all we can to try to help you work out a schedule with the administrator--a very lovely person, by the way.

Because this newsletter is available in Web page format, we hope that you will find it easy to send mail to us or to view material from our Website simply by clicking on the links.

SELF SEEKERS MEMBERSHIP FEES

Membership fees remain the same in 2000: Regular Member, $12 and Charter Member, $25. If you are a Patron Member, your initial contribution is gratefully acknowledged and good for the lifetime of the "Self Seekers" association.

Last April's newsletter is now available to all cousins at our RootsWeb FreePages site. We had some great photos and articles in that issue. We'd like to present more of the same, but wee can't do it without your help. PLEASE contribute something. Photographs, articles, family trees, and reunion recaps will be gratefully received and enjoyed by everyone.

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WHAT DID I DO 40 YEARS AGO? OR, THE OLD DAYS OF GENEALOGY
written by Barbara Peck, edited by Tim Seawolf-Self

In 1959, when I was just 14, I became a genealogist. My interest began when I volunteered to help a friend find her ancestry from just two clues: her father's childhood home and his given name, "Samuel," of which he was the fourth or fifth in succession.

I was at a total loss when it came to applying this meager information. Like most researchers, I concentrated on working backwards in time from my friend's generation. Although the family had migrated into neighboring states, the location she had given me turned out to be that of her first American ancestor. Since my mother was a librarian, I had access to an extensive genealogical reference collection. That first American ancestor was listed there as well as his wife and children, one of whom was indeed named "Samuel." At that point, it seemed much more logical for me to work from this individual to the present. My Dad then reminded me that female lines are just as important as male lines despite the change in surname, so I began including all the descendants of the common ancestor that I could find. I've continued to use this "forward in time/include allied lines" approach throughout the years. Today, it allows us to provide you with sites encompassing all Self descendants (even unconnected ones) rather than a single homepage limited to our own specific branch.

SOURCES

Forty years ago, I used both primary and secondary sources, the latter consisting of books, magazines, and the research of others (see "Contacts" below).

SECONDARY SOURCES

I began my work with books. I looked up my surname in every genealogy or local history book I could find. Sometimes I would discover that someone with that name had been prominent in the community; other times a published genealogy for another surname source would contain bits and pieces or even large chunks of raw data that I could copy into my own notebooks. To this day, whenever I'm in a library, I can't help looking up my current surname (Self) in every promising resource.

If you've ever done family research in Massachusetts, you probably know that there are published "Vital Records" books for many of the cities and towns. These books contain the earliest records, usually up to about 1850. They're available to some extent in almost every public library in the state. My mother's library didn't have a Vital Records book for the town where my research was concentrated, so she ordered a copy for me on my 15th birthday. For almost two years, this book was my constant companion. It provided the groundwork for much of the early part of my endeavor.

I also joined the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Once or twice, someone drove me to Boston so that I could use the Society library; but mostly I borrowed books from them through the mail.

PRIMARY SOURCES

I was very fortunate to have the wonderful experience of handling primary source documents. On my first visit to the Town Hall in my target location, I was led into an old vault that contained huge ledger-type, cloth-bound books where generations of Town Clerks had entered births, marriages, and deaths. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the pleasant musty odor and see the entries in faded ink--this is where I learned to read old-fashioned ornate handwriting. The Town Clerk told me that I might be one of the last people ever to work directly with these records because a team of people from Utah were coming soon to microfilm them. Once that job was completed, the old books would be stored for posterity and only the microfilm would be used to view the records.

As I visited other cities and towns, I found most Clerks extremely accommodating. Only one City Clerk gave me a hard time--he kept asking me what specific person I wanted while I tried to explain that I needed records on all people with that surname. I believed then (and still do) that he was suspicious of a teenager with such an offbeat interest. On the other hand, the Clerk in a different city worried about the fact that I would sit for hours on end just copying records, and he kindly supplied me with lots of coffee and doughnuts. Offhand, I can recall only two locations that would not allow anyone to see records past an arbitrary "cut-off" date. Family history research seemed to be an acceptable execption to any concerns for privacy in those days.

CONTACTS

Contacting others for the purpose of sharing information was a cumbersome and time-consuming process forty years ago. I would learn of a descendant, get his or her address, and write a letter. Many contacts lived far away, prohibiting very costly long-distance phone calls. (As some of you have discovered, I'm really not a "phone person" at all, so I regretted only the loss of speed that voice connection offered). It would take days for a letter to be written and sent, days or weeks of waiting for a reply...sometimes I wonder how I had the patience to do that, but there was really no other way.

I was amazed at some of the kindnesses shown to me by complete strangers. One contact in northern California sent me a copy of a book he had compiled about his family--a typewritten manuscript with photos taped in and transcriptions of letters written to their relatives "back east." Another man entrusted me with his only document--a complete "family tree" etched on a roll of shelf paper.

Once, when I was 17, I saved up enough money to call a long-time correspondent in Utah. I still remember my friends gathering around the pay phone and the excitement of talking to someone 2000 miles away.

Many of the descendants of my first family had moved to Maine. It was only about 500 miles north of my home, but to someone not old enough to drive, it seemed like the end of the earth. My parents did take me there on two occasions (I got very ill during one of the excursions and had to leave before I got a chance to do any work--a terrible disappointment); and I stayed with a friend who lived in that area during a college break when I was about 20. But travel to another state was very expensive. So I had to think of some way to get the information to come to me.

During my junior year in college, I typed papers for other students as a way to make money. When I had sufficient funds, I bought a telephone book for a location where many descendants of my surname were currently living. I then prepared a form on one of those purple-backed masters. The form asked for the names and dates of known parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, etc. The College Duplicating Center gave me a discount for reproducing a massive amount of copies. I then wrote a cover letter, too--in fact, I typed two or three hundred of them by hand because I didn't want to insult the recipients by sending them a "personal" letter with a purple tinge. Finally, I bought several rolls of stamps and sent a letter, form, and return envelope to each name listed in the phone book. I actually got over half of those forms back, but rarely could I match anyone up with their line--the gap in between was just too great to make a connection and most people knew very little beyond the names of their grandparents.

RECORD KEEPING AND DISTRIBUTION

Soon after I began my research, I came across a published genealogical monograph that presented the material in chronological order. Each individual who had offspring was assigned a second unique number as well as having a number designating his or her place among siblings. Those with unique numbers were listed later in the document (in sequential order) in their own family group. I adopted this style with a few modifications. First, I assigned a later family group to an individual who married even if they didn't have children--in my opinion, this made it easier to read than if the marriages were briefly mentioned in the group sheet of that person's parents. Second, I decided not to use unique numbers. Every time a new line or family group was discovered, everything would have to be renumbered, and that's a nightmare on a word processor let alone a typewriter. I opted for asterisks to designate that a person's unique entry would appear later in the document. Admittedly, this practice made it quite difficult to locate the person in a typed manuscript. Today, the "Find" tool takes care of that problem for me, and I still use the same numbering conventions as I did forty years ago.

My work went through several incarnations in the next ten years. The first 50 page document was created on a manual typewriter and placed in a manila folder. As the document grew, I began to punch holes in the pages and store them in 3-ring binders. My parents bought me my first electric typewriter when I was 17. By the time I was 18, I had twelve volumes of a manuscript typed on letter-size sheets with a consistency similar to the "math paper" we used in school. As new information was discovered, I would write it in pen on the back of the appropriate page and place an arrow where that data would go. But you can see that when each major revision was completed, I would be forced to begin another. How I used to wish there was some way to fit things in without having to re-type the whole manuscript! On the other hand, working with the document constantly allowed me to memorize names, dates, and relationships so that I could discuss the family without having to refer to my printed pages.

I never really distributed the total manuscript or even a portion of it except for one version that was microfilmed by the LDS Church in Salt Lake City. Usually, I simply discussed families with my contacts--sometimes we exchanged brief "family trees." I never saw a "family group sheet" until I became friends with an LDS Church Elder a few years later. When the proposed Cape Cod National Seashore was in its land-purchasing stage, I helped out with clues that enabled the workers to trace deeds back to the 17th century. This was all done verbally--I talked and the workers wrote down what I said.

REAL TIME FUN

Because I lived fairly close to the major locations inhabited by my "first family," I was able to spend a lot of time conducting research outside the confines of libraries, city halls, and courthouses. My youth was an advantage in these surroundings: I was dedicated, I could move easily, and I was somewhat of a curiosity which encouraged people to get to know me and find out what I was doing. I discovered that while people loved to re-tell stories handed down through the generations, most were unfamiliar with the concept of searching for their ancestors. Surprisingly, almost everyone embraced the idea and accepted me as "one of them" because I brought them a verified history to add to their legends. It's been a very long time now, but I don't ever remember feeling like an outsider or being denied information by anyone who could provide it.

The progenitor of the family was buried in a cemetery in the tiny town where he had lived, and it wasn't unusual for me to eat lunch on his tombstone. The Town Clerk, who was also responsible for mowing the grass in the cemeteries, used to take me with him once a week or so to copy inscriptions while he worked. Of course we had to have ice cream cones along the way. I also recall visiting some elderly descendants who always provided home made ice cream for the "young lady looking for grandpa."

One of the Selectmen of that town had the surname I was researching. He took me to many places that were relevant to his family. Once he gave me a tour of old houses where his ancestors had lived. I remember two that had "lofts" reached by staircases as steep as ladders. One of them had a story attached: a young girl about my age had thrown herSelf down the stairs as a protest against going away to boarding school (she was sent off anyway, broken arm and all). The other led to a beautiful, hand-carved cradle. Once I saw a grandfather clock which had served as a temporary coffin for an ancestor murdered by his wife. And best of all, we visited the cellar hole of the progenitor's original dwelling. We raced down the hill and inside that crater, subsequently looking up at the surroundings that framed the everyday activities of a man who had lived long ago.

One of the most peaceful places I remember was the home of a descendant who lived by a thick, reedy marsh that had once been a river. She was in her late eighties then. When she was my age, she declared, the river had come right up to the porch where we spent many long lazy summer afternoons. A year or so after we met, she had a stroke which made her unable to speak. She could still write and drive a car, though, so we continued our friendship for several more years before she passed away.

An elderly man with a closely allied surname contacted me when I was about 17. His method of research was much different from mine: he wanted to gather up all the possible descendants of his surname and then sort them out later on. He used to bring partial pedigrees to me at my home and ask me if I could provide further ancestry. When he left after each visit, I would find that he had left sizable payment on the table or stuffed in the cushion of his chair. I never felt quite right about taking this money any more than I warmed to the suggestions of publishing and selling my research for a profit. Once this man held a "family reunion" in a nearby town. I was 19 years old at the time and the featured speaker at this gathering. My mother went with me, and I had them write "Scribe" on her little name tag!

SUMMARY

Conducting genealogical research was difficult 40 years ago. Everything had to be typed or written by hand, and long periods of time passed while letters were exchanged. Phone calls were expensive. Primary records were still available in their original format, but one had to go to them or devise some other way of obtaining information. The pleasurable and friendly interactions along the way were the positive things that kept a researcher working despite the primitive methods of the day.

See below for a comparison of yesterday and today...

(NEXT: Genealogy and the Next Generation)

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WHAT DO I DO ALL DAY? OR, GENEALOGY TODAY
written by Barbara Peck, edited by Tim Seawolf-Self

Alex Haley and his famous show and book, "Roots," are considered the catalyst for the tremendous interest in genealogy today. In truth, it was the computer that revolutionized genealogy and made our hobby appealing to many people. Researchers have found themSelfs relying more and more on electronics to help them climb their family trees.

Today's genealogist will find that having a name and a location may be enough to fill an entire gedcom. Just one inquiry may elicit responses from cousins all over the world. And it may happen overnight--you may wake up to generations of ancestors you never knew and could never find if you spent a year in a public library.

SOURCES

Almost all of my sources today are secondary. In addition to Websites and computer databases, I still use books and print material sent to me by cousins. Once in a great while, my secondary source is a firsthand copy of the primary source, but even reference books are becoming digitized or contain material that is duplicated online or on a CD-ROM. One of the last holdouts--the Census records--are quickly being transcribed into digital format.

CONTACTS

Making genealogical contacts is both fun and fast when you use a computer. You can find cousins almost everywhere--they post messages to "bulletin boards" and queries/surnames to county pages; they upload gedcoms to several online services; they create personal Web pages; and, if you have a genealogy-based Website, they'll find you! Actual contact is almost instantaneous. If there are no hardware or software barriers and if the recipient reads his or her e-mail regularly, you can establish correspondence within a 24-hour period--and sometimes much sooner than that. Because e-mail is usually brief and informal, people tend to reply much more quickly and often than they would via the postal service or by telephone.

The fun comes in two parts: (1) exchanging genealogical information; and (2) making a friend. The majority of contacts aren't much different than they were 40 years ago. They want data from you and will give you some in return. You may write feverishly for awhile, and then limit your correspondence to holidays or occasional greetings. Perhaps you may never write to each other again, but the warm glow of contact still remains. If you're lucky, you'll find a close relative, and eventually you will meet each other in person. Or, you may just "hit it off" together and make a lifelong friend. If you're really, really fortunate, a close relative will become a dear friend--someone you may never have known at all had it not been for your mutual search and the enabling use of computers.

RECORD KEEPING AND DISTRIBUTION

Most people today keep their personal family records in a digital format. Paper and pen are reserved for quick phone calls or taking notes at a family reunion--but even those are being done increasingly on laptops, notebooks, and palmtop computers.

Several genealogy software programs are now available to help you organize your information. Once you enter the names, dates, and relationships of individuals into these programs, you can create a variety of reports which can be printed out or exported, usually in the form of a "gedcom" or electronic family tree. Most genealogy programs allow for the import of gedcoms sent to you by others or downloaded from host Websites.

Forty years ago, I would have done anything to eliminate the time-consuming, cumbersome, and boring job of re-entering data in order to make additions and corrections. Today, I feel quite old-fashioned when I tell people that I do, in fact, use a word processor rather than a genealogy program to maintain our enormous repository of Self material. But that's the nice thing about computers: you have choices, and you can select whatever works for you!

You can also distribute your family information easily. There are now quite a few Websites which feature gedcoms and even scrolling, graphical "trees" courtesy of Javascript technology. You can also host your own site and fill it with information that others will be glad to find. If you're not ready for the whole world, you can still export gedcoms or send word processor documents or spreadsheets to your friends and relatives via e-mail, diskette, or CD-ROM. You can also distribute photographs, scanned text or group sheets, music, voice narrative, family reunion "booklets"--the possibilities are endless.

SO WHAT DO I DO ALL DAY?

If you write an e-mail message to me, my quick response may make you think that I spend 24 hours a day on genealogy. Actually, I'm very lucky because my personal Internet access is provided by my workplace free of charge. I administer a small network and care for the attached workstations, so I like to remain available as much as possible in case there are problems at work when I'm not there--thus, I'm almost always connected during all my waking hours. I'm also fortunate because I live so close to my workplace that I have no long-distance charges associated with dial-up.

I do spend most of my free time--after work and on weekends and holidays--doing genealogy. My typical tasks are:

(1) Adding to our master document as well as to state/county and special documents. The special documents are mostly large Self lines that are still unconnected to Olde Robert Selfe. The added material comes primarily from cousin submissions and online gedcoms.

(2) Searching the Websites that host online gedcoms and extracting information to add to the documents above. I also "invite" the submitters to visit our sites.

(3) Modifying existing Web pages and creating others. Right now, the main "work in progress" is our "SelfSite at RootsWeb" which contains our Census records and "Loose Ends." Changes are being made to the "Loose Ends" section all the time. Our other Self sites are modified at specific times--for instance, I upload the new "Self Family of the Week" page to "Self Portraits" on Saturday evening or Sunday morning and then prepare the next one. The "Featured Family" list and the "Family Record" are changed then, too. The new and old "Self Seekers" newsletters are shuffled around every three months. Other changes are random, such as adding a new sub-page, a new link, or a new query.

We maintain our Guest Book for "Self Portraits" and the RootsWeb-hosted GenConnect BBS Boards. They require very little work, but occasionally an inappropriate posting must be removed--and posting cousins unknown to us must be greeted and helped, if possible.

We do have Websites that don't (necessarily) involve Selfs , too. Together, we host three USGenWeb county sites which all need frequent updating and the insertion of queries, surnames, and links. Tim's personal interest is his Route 66 Auto Club site (private domain), and mine is Lighthouses, hosted by RootsWeb Communities. I need to ftp to and from all our domains at as many host computers several times each hour.

(4) Maintaining address books. While Tim does all the work generated by our many ListServs (except for Lighthouses, which I personally oversee), I maintain the records associated with each List. This involves recording the e-mail address, name of individual, name of list, and any other pertinent information about our subscribers. In this way, I can tell at a glance if someone is really subbed to a list or if their e-mail address has changed, etc.

Working with our cousin list is a very important task. From this list I run queries that provide the e-mail addresses of cousins researching certain Self lines. This enables me to match up close cousins, one of the most pleasant and rewarding things I do. This is why it's so urgent that you keep your e-mail address current in my list--you wouldn't want to miss out on meeting someone closely related to you.

(5) Writing e-mail. This is the most time-consuming, important, and satisfying part of my job. And it takes precedence over everything else I do during each genealogy session.

It's our policy to see that no e-mail message goes unanswered, even if we can't help in any way. Most of the e-mail I write is spontaneous such as replies to inquiries (relevant or not) or BBS postings, postings to our ListServs and the many others I belong to, and, of course, messages to the cousins who have become good pals and friendly acquaintances. Some of the mail I send is of the "form letter" variety--these include welcomes to our ListServs, acknowledgments of contributions (usually with a personal note), holiday greetings, etc. The greetings serve as a pleasant way to keep in touch and to verify e-mail addresses.

We generate initial e-mail as well. When we find a gedcom on the Web, we invite the compiler to visit our sites. Tim sends out messages asking people to consider joining "Self Seekers," our Self Family Association. We write to those who make postings to the Self BBS at RootsWeb and to our "Self Portraits" GuestBook. And we write to those whose e-mail addresses are given to us by other cousins.

Finally, I write to various sources for permission to link to, post, or reprint material that may be of interest to our visitors and list members.

Sometimes I even write snail mail--but there are just a very few exceptions to our "total online" policy and they involve those who truly have no means of electronic communication. I am definitely not a "phone person," although I've had some nice conversations with some of you.

SUMMARY

As with any major new technology, the computer has been both praised for its strengths and demeaned for its weaknesses. It has virtually revolutionized the hobby (and business) of genealogy. Information is thrust at you as quickly as you can absorb it. There is no more wasted time, and geographical barriers no longer exist. Long-lost relatives can be found in a matter of days or even minutes via the World Wide Web.

Forty years ago, my typical genealogy session involved either copying from primary source records at the location where they were kept, writing and mailing letters, or doing repetitive maintenance on my typewritten document. Today, I can do all of this and more just sitting at my computer.

We always appreciate your "Self Seekers" contributions. As you can imagine, the cost of purchasing equipment, domains, and ISP service can add up even when you disregard the time we spend in doing what we do. But we're the major Self surname repository. For most of you, purchasing a decent computer, a few peripherals, and obtaining the services of your local ISP are the only costs you need incur to find your Self, wherever he or she may be hiding.

In conclusion, genealogy today seems very different from the hobby of 40 years ago. No one can doubt the profound effect that personal computers have had on climbing one's family tree. But few researchers today--and perhaps none at all in the future--will ever experience the joy of holding a primary document in their hands. What hasn't changed is the fact that no gains can be made without the cooperation of others. Today, electronic handshakes can be made instantly--whole lines can be discovered and recorded in one evening, and that sure beats snail mail and the wasted time between exchanges. But we can still apply what we've learned from studying our ancestors--people are people in any age, and our cousins are the greatest resources we can have.

(NEXT: Oops, I goofed!)


Maybe your ancestors used to tell stories about life in the "old days," stories you remember hearing as a child. Please tell us about them. We will even supply editing and formatting; but we'd all love to know about daily life in the Self families of old. Please contact us.


LOOSE ENDS

Please go to our "Loose Ends" subsection at our SelfSite at RootsWeb.


SELFS IN SPACE

What would you like to see here? This space is reserved for any topic of interest to Self cousins. Express YourSelf!!


If you do not wish to receive this electronic publication, please take a moment to e-mail us.

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DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES AND LIABILITY

Some parts of this newsletter contain information contributed by individuals. The editors may not monitor or censor the information placed on these Pages. We do not invite reliance upon, nor accept responsibility for, the information posted here.

Each individual contributor is solely responsible for the content of their information, including any and all legal consequences of the postings. We are in no way, in whole or in part, responsible for any damages caused by the content in this newsletter or by the content contributed by any person.

We do not warrant, or guarantee any of the services, products, or information used for these pages. We do not make any warranty, expressed or implied, and do not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any of the information disclosed in this publication, or represent in any way that the use would not infringe privately owned rights.

NOTICE: The information in this newsletter is Copyrighted, and must not be used for any commercial purposes or republished in any form without prior permission. This newsletter is copyrighted, except where previous copyright applies.

Copyright 1998-2000 Tim Seawolf-Self and Barbara A. Peck, All Rights Reserved


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