I have a suggestion that might help a lot of Cave researchers.
I have a number of Cave references, and I see new ones posted all the time on
this forum. It seems that most of the early Virginia Caves, for example, are
probably of the same family. Yet the info we all have is posted in various
places.
Is it possible that we could set aside a place on the Web..perhaps someone's
already existing webpage, that can have actual cave references say pre 1750,
or 1800? It would be better to have a cut off date like that than to get
endless Cave references later on. The references would only be actual,
primary sources and records, i.e. land grants, early birth records,
marriages, Bible records, etc. This wouldnt really cover that many people,
but it might provide missing pieces to the puzzle.
For example, we recently hashed out the fact that the John Cave who married
Elizabeth Travers could not have been the father of the Mary Cave who married
John Echols, ancestors of many people on this list. And this despite the
fact that there are scores of websites having John and Elizabeth as Mary's
father. By posting early records with exact dates in a chronological order,
we could easily show the dates are wrong.
Thats why I also think it would be unwise to go much past 1750, where we
start having a proliferation of Caves.
What do people think of this idea? If someone can host this site or this
page on their site, I know I can provide a number of early references. Then
whoever wants to add could check of the expanding list, avoid duplication,
etc.