I have a few Lockwoods in my database, but none that take up the names currently being discussed. I have ONE Lockwood in Addison, but not until the 1900s. I picked up this unknown Lockwood from the 1900 census for Leonard, Addison, MI for the family of Edward C. Lockwood and his wife Edith. The child was "unnamed" in the census as he was only a month old. Seems strange to me that people took so long to name a child! Edward is the son of Jeremiah Lockwood and Rachel Goff of Brandon, MI who apparently moved to Dryden, Lapeer, MI to have Edward in 1860. The other children named in the 1900 census for Edward and Edith were Glenn and Rachel. Another of my Lockwood connections is to a Sylvester Lockwood who married Flora Perry - my ancestral line, Flora being my 2nd cousin that is and they were living in Brandon. Sylvester is a son of Jeremiah and Rachel, above. They had 3 children by 1900. Two more Lockwoods make up the children of Jeremiah and Rachel and they are Mary and Eliza. Mary married a William Oddy but I'm not sure if Eliza survived because I have lost her at the 1870 census and if she died before 1867, she doesn't appear in the vitals and in checking those same vitals she doesn't appear in the marriage or death index. I have been doing research on a variety of lines that resided in Oakland county starting in the 1840 census, but not necessarily every single name in the census -- only those that originally tied into my Perry family at that time. I have been going through the various census years with these many families and am currently working on the 1900 census. Having the soundex available to me for this census year, I am able to pick up families who have moved to other counties. Before that, it was strickly Oakland County research and only the other scattered counties when I learned something about a family who might have moved. So if I can't find them appearing in the next census they have either died or moved to another county. Given this scenario, my next census search when I finish with the 1900 is to move on to the 1910, then 1920 and finally to the 1930. At the same time, if a birth, marriage, or death occurred IN Oakland county I am looking at the vital records for Oakland County, MI ONLY. I am verifying the information found in the census records as best I can but it has been a slow road. I thought I had "finished" reviewing the films last year, but when I decided to create a "new" focus list for my Oakland county folks to make sure, I have subsequently "started over" to pick up all the new names found in the census records. These records covers the births and deaths from roughly 1867 to 1937, but to view the actual entry, the films stop in 1919 as that is the cutoff the LDS church uses for filming modern vital records. For those entries that occur after the end of the roll of film available, all I can do is put the possible choices into my notes for a research trip to Oakland County at some future time to look at the records myself -- if that will still possible, given the "privacy" crap that is going down in the courthouses these days. I may be wasting money traveling to the Oakland county courthouse by the time I get all my information that I need to look up! Tongue in cheek comment here, but it is gettng to the point that our lovely governments are blocking our efforts to do research with the closure of a lot of records except to "direct line" descendants. Picking up "collaterals" is going to be a whole lot tougher unless you lie about your relationship to who you are researching. Are they going to "disprove' what you say if you do? Doubt it. Don't think they've got 20-30 years to do the same research we are doing. Anyway, I'm off the soap box and back to Oakland county vitals. The marriages start in the 1820-30 range and again stop at the 1919 timeframe but entries are continued in the index through 1937. So, if anyone wants a lookup in Oakland County vitals, please send me the appropriate data. That is: Names, date of birth or approximate year of birth, place of birth (state at least), members of the family being searched with their information and if you know who the parents are or who the siblings might be who might be living in the same county, that would be a great help, particularly for those family surnames which are very common like Smith, Jones, etc. For marriage, give me the names of the two parties and the names of their parents and the date the marriage is suppose to have taken place. The very early marriages that occur on volumes A-G do not include the parents names in the marriage entry, but the later ones do starting with Vol. 1-4. I don't recall, at the moment, what year the parents names begin to be included, but even for the early ones, send that piece of information just in case their names may appear as a witness to the marriage. As an added benefit, there are rolls of films for delayed births that were done clear up to the 1940s and 1950s for those people who didn't get their birth recorded when they should of, which means that these entries are available. Again, the cutoff for these is for people born before 1937 but I believe a lot of these delayed entries were done because they wanted to apply for social security which means they were alive at the time the delayed birth record was created. The indexes pick up these delayed births and so if I find someone in those delayed births you get added pieces to the puzzle of your family. There is no specific index for these delayed births, only the main one that applies to all the birth entries. The added information gives the place of birth of the parents, their ages at the birth of the child, the position number of the child being recorded in the family and the number of living children of the mother and the "current" residence of the parents. I haven't determined whether the parents were still alive at the time of these delayed births, but I suspect they may be. For deaths, they start about 1867 like the births, and the same information as for the others would be nice to help me decide if I've got the correct individual. Now, even though you may know that they were born, married or died in Oakland county, I have found that there are huge gaps in dates throughout the records, so if I find nothing listed, it doesn't necessarily mean the marriage didn't take place or the birth or death didn't take place, it means that it just never got recorded at the courthouse. I also have available to me all the census films through 1900, so you need to let me know which census year you want searched. I go to two separate libraries during the week. I go to one on Tuesday evening to do census research and another one on Thursday evening for the Oakland vitals as my husband is on staff at these two libraries. So, if you wish a lookup, I need to have the information transmitted to me by at least Monday or Wednesday if you wish a lookup. Otherwise, any day of the week will do and I'll take your message with me when I go the next time. Make sure you put Oakland County, MI Vital Look up or Census Lookup in the subject line and send it to me off list. Thanks. Christie Trapp