You wrote: The 1900 census of Pinckard, Dale County, Alabama ED 60 lists several members of my family tree. HH 41 was my g grandfather W. N. Harris and family HH 42 was his son Jay W. Harris and family HH 46 was his daughter Ella, her husband Charles Roehlig and family HH 44 was J. Wes?? Harris, Locomotive Engineer, b. Ga 1867 and his wife Clara, b. Al 1875. Does anyone know who J. Wes?? Harris and Clara might be. W. G. Harris ______________________________ Question: Where were these various folks born? The census should give you a good clue. And in what places were they born? f you pick up any clues from the 1900 census--make a 3x5 card for each of these folks, or if you are clever with databases (which I am NOT), write down everything you know about each person. You probably can guess the marriage date from the age of the first child. Then, go to the 1880 census which is FREE--and online--at <A HREF="www.familysearch.org"> www.familysearch.org</A> Click on the link which says something like vast databases (the Library changed the format recently, and I temporarily lost the link, which formerly was easy to find) and find the 1880 US census. Now this census is tricky, and you have to outsmart it. Guess what--even simple surnames like Williams (listed without final s) and Harris--get messed up, not only by the census-taker himself but also by the present-day indexers, who apparently had difficulty with old handwriting. Figure out the age of each person in 1900 (from the census you cite) and then figure out how old the person, if he/she were alive in 1880, would have been in 1880. Why? Because, on the search engine, you probably are going to enter the State and the surname alone. And misspell that surname, if you have to. Then a long list of Harrises will come up, and you only want to link to those who are the proper age--and maybe (but folks moved around, and the county boundaries changed) the proper place. Genealogy ain't easy. Some of us folks who have trouble sleeping put ourselves to sleep by trying to think up new resources to search. One of my great guidelines are the topics listed for each county in the US which are listed on the same URL, given above. Search the family history library catalog for some likely topics. Some counties even have voter lists!!! And only men could vote for a LONG time. E.W.Wallace