Ted, thanks for the information. I guess I will have to do a lot of looking on this one. I will try General Land Office search. Thanks again, Wilma << I have used the General Land Office search to find federal land transactions by my family. I then download the tif file of the land pattent document. On those documents it usually gives the residence of the person obtaining the land. For example, for one of my ancestors in Indiana who was buying land in Jackson Co., the earliest document showed he was from Clark Co. IN and a later transaction showed he was from Jackson Co. Then your MO Gilmores might be like my John Gilmore who moved to Porter Township in Greene (later Christian) Co. in the 1840s. There were no federal land patents listed for him. Try the local land records too and see if they give anything about residence. Ted >>