You wrote: I have been searching for years for the William BENTLEY who married China BATTERTON. He died 7 Aug 1846 as I have his estate papers. How do I go about finding his parents? I have his marriage license 15 Jan 1838 in Madison Co, KY with her parents Abraham and Susannah HENLINE BATTERTON. And both William and China are buried in the BATTERTON cemetery, in the very north part of the county, also a Emily BENTLEY, who I think is a sister. Needless to say, there are lots of William BENTLEYs in KY. Any help or suggestions would be great, thanks, Mary in South Dakota - a long way from KY!! A Stab at Trying to Help You I hope you are near an LDS family history center. If so, telephone and ask when they are open--hoping they are open when you can get there. I have been fortunate to find many family relationships by studying the deeds of Madison Co., KY, and my ancestors have common names, at least in Madison Co.. In particular, commissioners deeds (indexed under Cs in I believe the grantor indexes, but look in both the grantor and grantee indexes) frequently spell out the relationships but sometimes only imply the relationships. For example, if the heirs cannot agree how to sell the inherited property, the court appointed [may still do this for all I know] a commissioner to help moderate and to act in an official capacity. Then after an agreement is reached, all the heirs sign, even some coming from out-of-state, although the deed does not seem to state their residence. I had to deduce this by studying census indexes. [Not everything in genealogy is easy, is it?] Not all family deeds involve a commissioner, who seems to have come rather late on the scene, according to the indexes. Since the indexes are alphabetized, I highly recommend that you photocopy all the Bentleys (and perhaps Battertons) in both the grantor and the grantee indexes. To find about which records for Madison Co., KY are held by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, go to the online catalog on www.familysearch.org I look for Place and type in Madison Kentucky [lower case and leave out the word county] Go to the topic Land and Property and click on that. You may want to print out the catalog listing. Look at the top for View Film Notes and then later look for a prompt which tells you how to get a printable copy. If you are near an LDS center, take this printout and ask how you can send for the loan of a film or two. There is a limited time for having these films--in most FHCs as there is no storage room in many cases--so do not order too many films at once. Most of the time you can extend the loan, but if you cannot get to the FHC to read all you want to read, well--you can figure it out!!! Because title searchers use land records, particularly deeds, in their title searchers, most county clerks have typed these indexes, and so they are easy to read. If you are not near an LDS FHC, write me back privately and I will tell you how you can request photocopies from Salt Lake City (for a fee, of course). A number of years ago, one of the genealogical journals (it was either Kentucky Ancestors, published by the Kentucky Historical Society) or (Blue Grass Roots published by the Kentucky Genealogical Society), both headquartered in Frankfort, KY, had published a transcript of a family Bible for Bentleys. I do not know whether it pertained to your Bentley family. Have I confused you? Don't give up hope. Genealogy takes time!!! By the way, I did a google search for madison county kentucky + genealogy and came up with this URL http://www.rootsweb.com/~kymadiso/surname.html A couple of persons (I hope their e-mail addresses are current) have either entered something about Bentley family or have posted a query. I suggest you try to contact them. E.W.Wallace