Hello List , We all have brick walls in researching. Most times it is about the county they lived in & the year involved. The counties were created & re-sized often. Many times the same location was in a different or now non existing county. The wonderful site below has most states from their beginning to very recent , showing the creation of it's counties. It is slow in loading , but oh so worth it. Pick your state , it starts from that states beginning , you will see all the years when a change occurred. Under the map you have 5 buttons 1) PLAY ( quickly moving thru the years) 2) STOP 3) VIEW 4) PREV 5 )NEXT . I just use the NEXT button , it allows you to read all that happened in the time frame. The areas not yet designated as a county are shaded in blue. You can see the state taking shape & growing. Also some counties listed are no longer counties today, names we never heard of !! You will be able to follow your counties growth or demise thru the years. PA started in 1673, Allegheny county in PA is very interesting to follow from original size to it's place in history today. Under the years listed are the abbreviations used in the set up. This why finding some missing relatives is so difficult , we need to know WHAT the county was called in a given time!! So in looking at a family in a given time frame look at the map & year to see just what the ground they ALWAYS lived on was called county-wise. Have a good look around for each state... lots of good info. Here is the site ; enjoy Julie B in NC http://www.familyhistory101.com/map_county.html