This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: BALLOU, BELLOU, ABBOTT Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/xU.2ADE/491.1 Message Board Post: Hi Linda - Thanks for doing your posting per our discussion. If you go to Maricopa County Recorders office public records on-line I found several documents that may be your research subject and relations of his as well. You can find easily enough by using Google.com and type in Maricopa County Recorder. Once at their home page, look for imaged documents which are filed under two separate periods or eras. First of all there is a 1969 deed recorded in the names of Lester L. and Lillie M. BALLOU. If this is your research subject it puts them in Maricopa County during that era and provides an address from which to search records and try to locate other relations. Then there is a death certificate for Lester L. BALLOU that is recorded on 3-15-1990. This doesn't mean this is the date this person died, just the date the certificate was publically recorded. On exactly the same day the State of Arizona filed a Estate Tax Lien on this same person. Both these records can be purchased, along with the deed from 1969 for a very small expense. Also on 3-15-1990 it appears Lillie M. BALLOU, presumeably Lester's wife filed a Quit Claim which would have probably cleared the way for her to assume ownership of some sort of property that he owned or that they owned jointly. This document also lists one Lillie M. ABBOTT, presumeably Lillie's remarried name as the deed also lists a Thomas W. ABBOTT as having an interest in this deed. This could be Lillie's husband taken following Lester's death. If you obtain a copy of this document it probably will list an address as to where Lillie and Thomas were living in 1990 and then they can be easily tracked to contemporary times from that address. Knowx.com also shows that there are two L. BALLOU in Arizona currently. One resides in Phoenix, the other Scottsdale. That information came up when I searched on Lester BALLOU. The same addresses came up when I searched on Lillian BALLOU. Knowx also shows a L. BALLOU as having died in Tempe which agrees with your posting. I did not search on Lillian ABBOTT or Thomas ABBOTT, but you can try that yourself to get a feel as to how the site works. I also didn't search the Maricopa on-line records for one Lillie ABBOTT or Thomas ABBOTT either. You might try it for yourself to see what you come up with. This should give you some things to work on. If Lillie remarried I'd check to see if she and/or Thomas are still living as they, hypothetically are going to be a rich source of information for what you are trying to accomplish. Also the death certificate will identify the physician who pronounced Lester as being dead. This may be his personal physician in which case you can attempt to see if this doctor in still practicing and if so, is Lester's file available to you as a blood relation? If Lester's doctor has ceased practicing or died, it may be possible to find out what medical practice has his medical records in an effort to acquire them. Let me know what you find out, and based on those findings I'll make some other suggestions. Good luck and good hunting. Glen F. Pritchett, USGENWEB volunteer