When my children were smaller, I worked at home as a freelance photojournalist writing and selling articles primarily on farm and home issues for Wallace's Farmer, Lady's Circle, Newsday Weekend Magazine and many more. I am a former member of the Iowa City Branch of American Pen Women and former Iowa Presswoman. In their 1973-74, second edition, I was listed in the World's Who's Who of Women published in Cambridge, England.
After my children were nearly grown, I worked for fourteen years as a Medical Records Secretary for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and retired in 1990. As a hobby I have played with genealogy since 1957 when I wrote my first query. I was quite fortunate to receive the family papers from both my family and my husband's family and it was important to me to preserve that data for my descendants. I do not claim to be a professional genealogist (I hired one to do it for me in Augusta County), and I am not working to prove anything to anyone. I am only interested in sharing what I have found in my lifetime or what others have shared with me. I am also a big fan of Bill O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone". I rarely ever read fiction. My years of working in a University system makes me a bit astute in recognizing political games and I am a bit contemptuous when I see them in play. You won't find me dancing to their tune.
Robert Longbottom has long fought the problem of a competitor who has jealously tried to disprove everything Robert has done on the Snider/Snyder records and in his newsletters. Those of us who have followed Robert Longbottom throughout the years understand that he was sincere in what he did and he was ready to correct anything if something new surfaced to prove or disprove earlier impressions. Robert Fulton's newsletters were began in the same vein in a sincere effort to share with each other, compare notes and discrepancies and yes, even correct, when errors were found. It was never meant to be a professional documentary to discredit, divide and alienate other researchers and I hope to keep myself on the same level of sincerity of these two men whom I always admired.
I hope others will understand what I have tried to accomplish and that I am not lying in wait trying to sabotage others. I don't have time to do that nor do I have the desire to waste my time that way. My school teachers used to tell my mother that Norma will never start a fight with anyone but God help anyone who starts one with her as she will finish it. I am secure enough to survive a few innuendoes and to laugh at them now. I hope I have matured since my defensive youth. I get enough back patting from appreciative users of my websites to keep me purring without a Fulton entourage of praise. I no longer have the energy to fight enemies. Most of them have died by now any way. I prefer to sit back and amuse myself and watch the court jesters dance by themselves.
The Fulton Family that I paid to have researched in Augusta County, Virginia contains footnotes to indicate the records that were found to verify my specific line. Whenever possible, wills, land transactions, church records, Revolutionary War records are included. The descendants of William Fulton whose will was missed in Chalkley's publications helped to fully document an illegitimate line down to my family. Previous researchers who wrote books have been consulted and at times quoted. The other Fulton branches in Augusta County were contributed by others and with the duplicity of names used, errors may be found when new information surfaces. That is all part of the game. Genealogy never reaches a final conclusion and proof beyond 1740 becomes increasingly difficult.
The goal here is to publish "documented information" and known published works that have been located for others to use. Any final analysis on other lines will be for their descendants to prove. When information is speculative, it is designated as such.
Updated January 14, 2002