Mecklenburg Registry wants you!
A new program, the Founding Families of Mecklenburg Registry, was officially announced as opened this spring. You are invited to register your genealogical links to the Founding Families of Mecklenburg. This registry will honor and perpetuate the memory of the early pioneers and settlers who lived in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina on or before North Carolina Statehood on November 21, 1789.

Please send a long self-addressed stamped envelope to request an application for membership in Founding Families of Mecklenburg, Historic Rural Hill Farm, PO Box 1009, Huntersville, North Carolina 28070.

Thanks to the Rural Hill Farm Piper Newsletter. For additional help, contact 5435 Hilltop Circle, Charlotte, North Carolina 28269, telephone 704-596-2079, e-mail jaunty@aol.com.

Yes, you can contact your military loved ones - free!
Z-Tel Technologies, Inc. is providing Operation Connect, a free public service to military families nationwide for the duration of Operation Iraqi Freedom until US troops come home. Operation Connect provides military families with unlimited access to Z-Tel's voice e-mail service free of charge, allowing them to send personalized voice e-mail messages to their loved ones serving overseas. Military families are not required to purchase Z-Tel service to take advantage of Operation Connect.

Military families can register at www.ztel.com/ustroops or 888-ZTEL-USA (983-5872). Z-Tel is the only service provider offering this type of personal and secure communication - and free of charge.
Source: Reunions Magazine, PO Box 11727, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211-0727.

What's true Scottish blue? Now we know!
Scotland's national flag is one of the most recognizable. . .diagonal white stripes on a field of blue. Purists and some flag manufacturers have complained for years that because there is no "official" shade, the color of the flag has varied wildly from deep navy to a light shade verging on turquoise.

The Scottish Parliament's education, culture and sport committee finally changed that, specifying the blue in the flag should be Pantone 300. George Reid, a retired Edinburgh accountant who has fought an almost single-handed battle for the decision, said, "If you look up in the sky today, that is Pantone 300 - sky blue."

New CBSI leadership elected!
Rosanna Randolph, of Vacaville, California, Judge of Elections for the Clan Buchanan Society, International reports the results of the recent election for new officers. Mrs. Randolph writes that she opened and counted the ballots received on August 8, 2003. The opening and counting was done under the observation of LtC. George S. Buchanan, USAF (ret.), First Vice President of The Clan Buchanan Society, International. The results are: president, John S. Watson; first vice president, George S. "Buck" Buchanan; second vice-president, James John Gibson; recording secretary, Shelagh College; Jerry Baxley (write-in), membership secretary and treasurer, Jim Gibson.

For information on Clan Buchanan, please write CBSI, PO box 2828, Moultrie, GA 31776-2828.