…prompted a lengthy reply.

SINCERE THANKS for your message. I love, love, love to hear from “cousins” and “roundabout cousins.” Don, allow me to tell you about a God-given blessing.

When I was doing genealogy “the old-fashioned way” researching in libraries, cemeteries, courthouses, Annual Meeting(s), etc., I heard about “The Dore Frantz Manuscript.” Occasionally, I would see something called “Except from The Dore Frantz Manuscript.”

I was at Old German Baptist Brethren Annual Meeting–in Springfield, Ohio–in 1990 or 1991. Lela Landes Shoup was my hostess and we went to the Springfield Library, and cemeteries, etc, plus the Annual Meeting. I repeatedly asked “Where is the Dore Frantz Manuscript?” Nobody seemed to know. Someone suggested I call Ilo Fisher. I called and she said “Call Jess Monteith.” I called Jess and he gave me a two word answer: “Call Dore.” I said “How can I call Dore? He’s dead.” Jess said “Dore, Jr. in Sinsinnata.” I did misspell… that’s the way he said it “Sin sin nat a.”

Lela looked up the phone number and we called and asked if we could visit. We would drive to Cincinnati. Dore Jr. said he would came to his brother George’s house in Springfield. About three that afternoon we were at George’s and I was able to see “The Dore Frantz Manuscript.”

Let me digress and tell you that Dore Sr. did research in the 1930s and 1940s that could not be duplicated in the 1990s. Tombstones are broken off and leaning against a tree or fence, etc. because Lela took me to a lot of the cemeteries. REMARKABLE  RESEARCH  BY  DORE  M.  FRANTZ.

Dore had typed pages that would eventually be chapters for a book. Remember (or you may be too young) carbon paper in slender boxes? Perhaps fifty carbon-paper boxes that fit neatly into a “just the right size” large cardboard box. Sadly, I did not get a picture of the box of valuable information.

I asked if I could take it back to California and enter the information into my computer. George and Dore said they would think about it. I said I’d buy an old trunk and pack the “valuable information” and ship it to California. A couple of days later they called Lela’s house and said “no.” I asked if they would take it to the place in New Carlisle where police records and hospital records where filmed. I would pay to have the pages available to me. (I was preparing the material that became Frantz Families–Kith & Kin.) I think it was late August (several months after Annual Meeting) when a package arrived–about the size of a Reader’s Digest. There were thirty-nine microfiche–which represented hundreds of pages.

Don, have you seen Frantz Families–Kith & Kin on the Internet? I list Dore M. Frantz as the author, with two other dear folks who were so helpful. I listed myself as “editor.” FF-KK is free on the Internet. Also Digitized Library of Family History.

I see you have DShull Family Tree and I will look at that after I “send” this message. I love your big smile. Would you like an invitation to my tree so you can wander around the forest of Old German Baptist Brethren and Church of the Brethren families??

Sending very best wishes and “happy researching.” THANK YOU for sharing your connection to Dore and Jessie. The printed books (FF-KK) have pictures of Dore and family. I didn’t know how to get the pictures on a CD, and later the data went from CD to Internet website. I wish I had the pictures of Dore and family on the website. I’m quite “savvy” about computers, etc, and Ancestry (for 85 years young) but some features are a mystery to me.