I have been researching my Mercer Family of Kent & Sussex, England, Western New York (and beyond) for many years.

Along the way I've met some wonderful and generous people, some related to me, some not. It is a joy connecting families and providing, as well as receiving, missing information....So, a great big THANK YOU to all contributors who spend enormous amounts of time and effort in their researching endeavours.

To that, it is disheartening to see instances where memorials have been transferred to individuals who do absolutely nothing with them once they take them over.
This endeavour here is all about those who have gone before us, not about us and what we can accumulate at their expense.

Also disheartening are the people who create memorials for noteworthy people just to have them and who do no further research or biography or those who cut and paste (with no source credit) biographies and photos from other people's painstaking research or historical websites.

I don't mind if you copy my photos for use elsewhere - but I do expect and sincerely appreciate the courtesy of being credited as the source. It is irksome to say the least to see my photos posted on Ancestry or some other website by people passing them off as their own.

In addition, if you cut & paste the narrative biography section of any one of the memorials I've created, I would also appreciate being credited for the painstaking and time consuming work I have done for your benefit.

Thanks very much
~~~~~~~
It's easy to hate,
it takes strength to be gentle & kind

No act of kindness is ever wasted
~~~~~~~

The Sailing Ship
By Bishop Charles Henry Brent

What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from the horizon,
And someone at my side says, "She is gone!" Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone",
There are others who are watching her coming,
And other voices take up a glad shout,
"There she comes" – and that is dying.

I have been researching my Mercer Family of Kent & Sussex, England, Western New York (and beyond) for many years.

Along the way I've met some wonderful and generous people, some related to me, some not. It is a joy connecting families and providing, as well as receiving, missing information....So, a great big THANK YOU to all contributors who spend enormous amounts of time and effort in their researching endeavours.

To that, it is disheartening to see instances where memorials have been transferred to individuals who do absolutely nothing with them once they take them over.
This endeavour here is all about those who have gone before us, not about us and what we can accumulate at their expense.

Also disheartening are the people who create memorials for noteworthy people just to have them and who do no further research or biography or those who cut and paste (with no source credit) biographies and photos from other people's painstaking research or historical websites.

I don't mind if you copy my photos for use elsewhere - but I do expect and sincerely appreciate the courtesy of being credited as the source. It is irksome to say the least to see my photos posted on Ancestry or some other website by people passing them off as their own.

In addition, if you cut & paste the narrative biography section of any one of the memorials I've created, I would also appreciate being credited for the painstaking and time consuming work I have done for your benefit.

Thanks very much
~~~~~~~
It's easy to hate,
it takes strength to be gentle & kind

No act of kindness is ever wasted
~~~~~~~

The Sailing Ship
By Bishop Charles Henry Brent

What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from the horizon,
And someone at my side says, "She is gone!" Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone",
There are others who are watching her coming,
And other voices take up a glad shout,
"There she comes" – and that is dying.