No, Melissa, my Francis Marion Bates stayed put once he got his family to the vicinity of DeKalb, Kemper Co., MS to a little settlement known as Big Oak. There is a very good chance your Marion's full name is also Francis Marion. It was a name southern parents revered because of the courageous and daring exploits of the popular Revolutionary War General called the "Swamp Fox". He led the Red Coats a merry chase through the Carolina swamps in hit and run missions which demoralized the British soldiers accustomed to a more structured form of battle. He was of French extraction and his Huguenot grandparents had been driven from France in 1685 and settled along the Santee River near Charleston, SC. Most males are never comfortable with the name Francis so they choose to be called Marion. As for having only land records of your Marion Bates, that means there must be tax records and there is a great possiblity he may have homesteaded land. I don't remember when the first homestead act was passed, but I urge you to check the Bureau of Land Management CD-ROM disk for Arkansas public land sales. It will include homestead land patents. So why is that good news? When you find an ancestor who homesteaded, write for ALL the records of that homestead--loose papers, letters, etc. You may strike gold and find correspondence from your ancestor to the land office requesting an extension of time due to crop failure etc or explanations of an absence from the land. I found a wealth of info about my grandparents in their homestead file. Good Luck! Jack Bates [email protected]