To Harris Hunters whose folks may have been in Kentucky (possibly originating in Virginia, North Carolina, and possibly Pennsylvania. Tennessee was formed after Kentucky was formed.) One of the easier states in which to do genealogical research is Kentucky, although there a few burned courthouses!!! Most persons migrated early to Kentucky because of land, and from there they migrated to Indiana, Missouri, wherever. One of my distant cousins, with whom I share colonial Virginia, colonial North Carolina and Kentucky roots says her folks kept moving till they got to Oregon!!! Anyway, if you suspect your ancestor was age 16 or over and owned nothing in Kentucky but a horse, please investigate and see whether tax records for the county in which you suspect he lived has extant tax records. I personally use the Family History Library (LDS) online catalog to begin my preliminary research. For example, was the county in existence for the time period in which you search. Kentucky was one huge county at one time. Then it divided into three counties--Nelson, Lincoln, and Fayette, so you have to know the genealogy of the counties. Then the counties kept dividing--until now, a recent past governor complained that Kentucky had too many counties. It probably made it difficult for the Commonwealth to send funds (if it did) to all those counties, each of which had to support a sheriff, at least one fire department, and so on, not to mention all the roads. Imagine all the bookkeeping. (But I deviate.) If you find your ancestor was taxed for land--and not his single horse (which generally denoted a single male who had just reached majority), then try to learn from the FHL catalog on www.familysearch.org [place search] whether any deed indexes exist. If so, try to order to a nearby LDS center both the grantor and the grantee indexes. (The list of these FHCs is also on the above website.) Your person may have sold his land before he migrated. Or, if he died before he migrated, then you have to look for the names of those whom you suspect were heirs. Also look under the listings for C = commissioner. A commissioner was frequently appointed by the county court to help the family distribute or sell the property All the heirs or the heirs of the heirs were involved--that is how I learned the names of the spouses of the female heirs. If you person did NOT own land, then try the court records for that county or a parent or progeny county. In Kentucky these records are called court order books (COBs). Since there were no credit cards, people frequently got in debt and then the creditors sued!!! A distant cousin helped me establish a linkage between my ancestor (conjectured) and his father when she found a bail bond--just lying around the courthouse (not filmed). We genealogists have to snoop a lot, and sometimes we have to demand that the county clerk let us see public records (if we cannot find a film which we can borrow). Birth records for the recent past are frequently off-limits, I found!!! But there are ways, so you have to learn those. (County clerks are not fond of genealogists--we leave their records in a mess, at times, naughty us!!) Also on the LDS website are guides for each of the US states (called research outlines) and for many foreign countires--England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Poland, and so on. Take a look by clicking around the website--all kinds of hidden goodies there. Sometimes the research outlines tell of records you have not thought about, for example, state censuses, or state military records. I hope you find your Harrises in Kentucky--and wherever else they may have been. My most recent Harris was a female--but, guess what, I found her death record in the 1860 mortality schedule. She died just before the Civil War, after a move from Kentucky to Texas. Harrises, like others, are where you find them! E.W.Wallace