Mary Anning lived during the early 1800's. Women were seldom allowed to go to University. Mary learned the technique of fossil hunting from her father and continued to look for them with her brother after her father died. Joseph, her brother, finally decided to follow another path. Mary continued her interest in fossils by asking questions, reading, and studying fossils. She was very poor and sold her fossils to help pay the rent and buy food. Mary received little credit for her work at the time, but letters, journals and scientific articles from her time have helped us know about her.