[Dan O'Connell]

Ed, first off, a heartfelt thank you for the kind words. You mentioned a number of very excellent points, first being that Phil was right. The references noted are perhaps 1/3 of the actual documents used; thousands were not, many were not noted due to similarity, and it's not a book of reference documents in the end, although I feel it's been adequately and reliably referenced in the constraints of how much room we had to work with in the book. Classics did an outstanding job squeezing it all in. Next, the "unknown entries" area was included specifically to offer`information for future historians; there will never be an end to the research, and I KNOW more information will present itself in the future, and hopefully these entries will give some solid clues for future work.
Most importantly, I never in a million years could have amassed all this information on my own. It took many individuals who were not selfish to share their own hard won knowledge and experience, to allow me the oportunity for the challenge to put it all together. Yes, I spent countless hours putting it together, translating the raw original documents, endlessly cross checking the information, etc etc, and coming up with what I believe is the truth as best as I am able to present it, but it could NOT have been done with out input from people all over the world. This presentation simply could not have been done with out their help. The list of those to thank is to long to present at this moment, but gentlemen, you know who you are. And you all have my warmest thanks for the opportunity. I hope I did it right for you. Dan