generation are
deceased. In those instances, that person's siblings are named,
but statistical
data is not included to maintain privacy.
The search
started with an undated photocopy of a Levi Tope paper that
listed the
families and gave many dates of birth and death. The sources for
the
information, however were not given. Esther Lena Tope Leffler (now de-
ceased)
compiled Family Group Sheets in the 1980s, but she did not cite her
sources.
cluded in the
Photo Gallery. Eulelah Reynolds, a sixth generation descendant,
wrote several
pages of her first-hand knowledge of the of the Melville Free-
man Tope
family.3 As in the case of the Family Group Sheets, the sources of
her data were
not cited. With this information, an attempt was made to estab-
lish sources
for the data and expand knowledge of the family.
xxii