I passed this information along to some of the lists a long time ago. Many new people have joined so I thought I would share it again. I do a lot of talks during the year on a subject which I now call "How to Think Like an Abstractor". I title search property in my real job, I'm also a town historian in NY State. So I put what I know from both jobs together in a simple manner for genealogists to use. I then put it all on my web site. http://www2.pcom.net/cinjod/historian/Roots.html If you learn how to look in deeds the right way you won't miss anything. If you can't find a deed and you know gggreatgrandpa was there, theres a reason you can't find it. There are other records you should be looking in that may not have occured to you, and records you probably don't even know about that you should be looking in. Or you may have a will and think thats a good enough explaination of who got what and where they were, but its not. So take a look and you may find a new avenue to hunt! Cindy Amrhein Town of Alabama Historian Genesee Co., NY ********************** Historian's Page - Alabama, NY http://www2.pcom.net/cinjod/historian/ Experience the town of Alabama in Genesee County, New York. History, tombstone inscriptions, census records, history of the Tonawanda Seneca Indians and the Iroquois. Enjoy a good murder mystery? Read about the murders of Polly Frisch. APHNYS (The Association of Public Historians of New York State) http://www.tier.net/aphnys/ Genesee County, NY website. Includes History Department, (under "Historian") http://www.co.genesee.ny.us/ The Genesee Area Genealogy Society lists the names and addresses for all the Genesee & Wyoming County Historians http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygags/hist.htm