"Meticulous Mel" loves to research and will go anytime anywhere to find anything. He's so meticulous that it's intimidating to correspond with him. He never lets a typo get past him, never writes in the margins. He promptly answers letters the same day he gets them and gently reminds you that you asked the same question he answered for you six months earlier. His findings are superbly filed in plastic page protectors within color coordinated notebooks, with supporting documents in numbered folders in neat file cabinets. His conclusions are yet to be published, but he has included in his will that he leaves his marvelous collection to local historical society.

"Listen To Me Lollie" enthralls librarians and drop in patrons with genealogical wonder tales. Yet, she answers her genealogical correspondence six months later than you expected, telling you all of the family troubles on three long-hand pages, but she hasn't gotten around to doing any genealogical research but hopes you will send her all that you have done. If you do, don't hold your breath for a reply.

"Defensive Dan" published a genealogy of the family. He assigned some ancestors a wee bit loosely with little or no verifiable proof. If you ask him what his evidence was, he can't tell you, so he just keeps repeating the unproven assertion, hoping you'll tire from asking.

"Scattershot Sal" asks so many questions that it would be a 2 day job to answer them all ... and expects $33 of info for a 33 cent stamp. She reads queries from sixty people with the surname she's looking for and sends every one of them a photocopied letter asking them to fill in a family group sheet. She totally ignores the fact that she's looking for Smiths in Kentucky in 1870 and your query was for Smith in Massachusetts in 1750.

"Promising Paul" answers your every letter with a promise to photocopy those missing pages which will, you think, complete your ancestry in one line back to the 1600's. He writes each time: "I know I"ve got it, if I can just find time to send it to you. I'll be doing it soon for sure." But, of course, he never does.

"Gap-jumper Gert" loves to make charts climb. She has her ancestors on one line back to a man in Virginia in 1850. She can't identify his father, but she's sure he's a great-grandson of the family of the same name she's read about in a published genealogy, so she promptly claims those people as ancestors and wants to correspond about them. The gap between her generations means little to her, and the longer it exists, the more likely she is to forget about it entirely.

"Brusque Brutus", the Know It All, has all the answers and will not listen to any suggestions of items to check. Brusque Brutus has been a genealogist for 30 years and has no patience whatsover. If he gets a letter without a self-addressed stamped envelope (even from a beginner who obviously didn't realize he was being discourteous by failing to include one), it goes right into the wastebasket. If someone dares to question any of Brutus' findings, the inquiry will be summarily dismissed, because Brutus is sure he's right and won't consider any other possibility.

"Naive Nancy" is a newcomer to genealogy. She's heard that her ancestors were kidnapped by Indians but later rescued and that she is related to a former President of the United States. She's also heard that a maiden aunt "finished all of our family's history on all lines all the way back," and she wants your help in locating the book "that tells it all." Will believe the first thing heard or seen in print and never believe anything else.

"Publication Prudence" instructs all correspondents to send her completely filled out group sheets for her upcoming publication which will be "upcoming" for 20 years. By that time, everyone, including Prudence, will have long forgotten it. If only Prudence could get together with her cousin Rushing Rusty.

"Rushing Rusty" is in and out of the courthouse in 5 minutes. Rushing Rusty announces he's going to publish a family genealogy in six months and sets a specific day as a deadline. Amazingly, he does it. Laggards complain that their lines are left out, but at least Rusty has made a contribution to genealogical literature, which too few of us ever get around to doing.