ABOUT ME: I grew up in Sang Run, Garrett County, Maryland, near "Friend's Delight," the homestead established in 1796 by my 3X great-grandfather, John Friend, Jr. This property is now Sang Run State Park, and the Historic Friend Store on the site was built and operated by my grandfather, Smith McClelland Friend (1862-1953). Our Frände/Friend lineage in America traces back to Nils (Nicholas) Larsson Frände, who settled in the mid-1600s at New Sweden, Colonial America (now Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania), and through John Friend, Sr., my 4x great-grandfather, who settled at what is now Friendsville, Maryland, in 1765.

Other early settlers of Sang Run and nearby areas in Virginia/West Virginia and Pennsylvania included Hoye, Casteel, DeWitt, Savage, and Browning, who often intermarried with the Friend descendants, leading to the crossing of family lines. Descendants of these families later became early settlers in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.

Among my maternal relatives I have been researching for nearly 40 years are (1) Wunderlich/Wonderly, early settlers of Cumberland, Lebanon, Dauphin, and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania, Preston County, Virginia/West Virginia, and Colonial America; and (2) Arnold, Durr, Hauser, Yantz, Waltz, and Whorton families, who were early settlers of the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia Colonies.

Like many Find-A-Grave subscribers, I have a strong interest in my own family burials and am less focused on collecting memorials for unrelated individuals.

NOTE 1: I encourage "verifiable" contributions to memorials I manage. I always record the name of contributors.

NOTE 2: Any scans of obituaries posted to memorials I manage must be legible, easy to read, are upright, meet copyright rules, and captioned with source information. My preference is to add the link to the obituary or to transcribe the obituary and add it as an edit to the biographical information. However, I contacted Find-A-Grave about scanned obituaries, death certificates and other documents being added to a memorial and here is the response: ". . . Since the move to Ancestry and the new website, newspaper obituaries, death certificates, and other scanned documentation are allowed. We encourage members to move the images down to the bottom of the photo display so that they are not the first thing you see when viewing a memorial page."

NOTE 3: If photographs in my Find-A-Grave memorials are used in other Web sites (e.g., Ancestry.com), I request a note of attribution be provided regarding the source of the photo along with the caption or comment that I have placed with each photo or other documents.

NOTE 4: I transfer memorials to others almost every time when I am politely asked unless I happen to be more closely related to the person. On January 11, 2022, Find-A-Grave expanded relationships required under a transfer to include: "child, spouse/partner, sibling, parent, grandchild, great-grandchild, grandparent, great-grandparent, niece/nephew, great-niece/nephew, aunt/uncle, great-aunt/uncle, or first cousin. This would include adoptive, step and in-law versions of these relationships." I am very flexible about transferring memorials.

Per Find-a-Grave guidelines, burial locations or dispositions should be verified information. As such, Find-A-Grave is all about finding and verifying a grave.

I encourage members to sponsor memorials for close relatives and/or to post flowers in remembrances of loved ones. Enjoy your Find-A-Grave adventures. Stay committed to the task.