wiring

I didn't find an answer to this one in my electrical book. I am replacing some old outlet receptacles with new ones. The wire coming into the boxes is your average NM 12/2 but inside the box the wires are very short making it a tight area to work in. I can get the black and white wires out enough to reach the new receptacle or make pigtails to the new receptacle but the ground wire is just too short. So, I want to attach a new ground wire (6 inches or so in length) that runs from the new receptacle and pigtails with the ground wire inside the box. Does this new 6" wire have to be the same gage? In other words, will it matter if the new wire is thicker than the ground wire it is being pigtailed to?

Hi, Greetings! I am new to this forum, just a few things about myself. I have been a electrician for 20 years and have my own buisness since 1986. I have a very interesting electrical problem, one that i never incountered before... I am working in a Nunnery, it was wired in 1968 in steel flex. I was working in one of the bathrooms, where there is a thermador wall heater, I am moving a timer for the heater that was to close to the bathtub. I identify the circuit in a nearby sub-panel and turn it off. This is where it gets interesting; The voltage is still present in the circuit, after the breaker is opened the voltage drops to 32 volts! It is a split circuit sharing the nuetral with a receptical circuit. When I turn off the other breaker the 32 Volts drops to 0 V. I haven't had a chance to go into the bedrooms yet to open everything up, and check it out. Does anyone have any idea what is going on??? The nuetral is solid to the panel, as the other circuit is 120V from hot to nuetral.:confused: Jon