Our tiny historical society had a similar experience last year when a descendant of the creator of about 150 documents in our collection said he was coming by to see the family things. He alleged that the documents were given to someone years ago and that person was supposed to have given them to the state historical society. We had only fuzzy memories and skimpy written evidence as to how they wound up in our collection, but we decided that we have an obligation to our patrons to protect the collection from being slowly eviscerated. Within minutes of walking into our tiny museum, the descendant demanded to know why these things were in our collection and not that of the state historical society, as he intended. I answered only that I did not have an answer to that. We then shepherded him in and showed him the items, how they were stored, and how they had been carefully conserved. We pulled the items out and talked about each of them, we pointed out that researchers found their way to our door, to inquire about and study the items, and we noted that we are planning to include them in an upcoming related exhibition. We heard nothing further for a while after the descendant left, but in about a month, he called and said he found about 50 more documents and asked if we would like to add them to the collection ... which we cheerfully did. Lynne ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).