Hi, to Dena, I was reading your post in Roots, and had to comment. I don't know how close you are to the Madison County area, where the "courthouse burned". This happened often in that time period, and especially during the civil war. However, I would check closely for records anyway, as I have learned thru experience in several of my "no records because the courthouse burned" searches, that sometimes/often, they made it out with some of the records when the courthouse burned, and some of the records actually exist, but busy clerks have used this as a "crutch" to keep from bothering to search out old genealogy info. "Sorry, the courthouse burned and we don't have anything back before (whatever year). Of course, sometimes this is true--everything was destroyed, but also sometimes they were able to save some of the records, or maybe even some of the records weren't stored in the courthouse at the time of the fire! I'm just saying --Don't give up at the words "sorry, the courthouse burned in 1870" until you have checked their library, genealogical Society, etc. and managed to verify that in this case, the records were all actually destroyed. Good Luck. Judy JudyMcKinn@aol.com