When I was originally doing research for ANB, I spent months in various libraries looking first at standard biographical publications but also more obscure sources. I paged through every issue of The Numismatist and the American Journal of Numismatics.

I believe that today a person could find more information without leaving their computer. I have never paid for a subscription to one of the services, but I am amazed at what can be found on Ancestry.com and similar sources.

With ANB now available on the NBS site, someone can learn everything I know about an individual by looking at just that site. Then with a little more work they can expand well beyond what I published.

While I have become reasonably proficient at doing research on the web, there are people who are even better. We are fortunate to have some of those people contribute to The E-Sylum.

While looking for John G. Mills, I learned that he was a pigeon fancier. This reminded me of recent research I was doing on George F. Seavey. He was also a pigeon fancier. Was this common among numismatists? Are there others who pursued both hobbies?