When I was first getting into genealogy my Aunt Virginia stressed to me how important it was to focus on the straight line, and treat siblings as incidental. If the info on siblings was easy to collect then do so, if not, they were only sibling lines anyway. In the pre-computer era the above strategy was likely the only way to manage all the information. But I am one who will research anyone I am related to. I do trace & track sibling lines as interest and time allow. In fact, the only reason that I was able to locate Betsey STUBBLEFIELD's husband, William ALLEN's father Isaac, was because I also have a HUFF line and I ran into the family of John HUFF m. Mary Elinor CORDER. After I saw the Mary Elinor CORDER HUFF's sibilings I realized that my lines connected to 4 of the 5 daughters. That was a tremendously huge clue that I absolutely never in a million years would ever have located on my own straight line researching. Linking Isaac ALLEN & Sophia Ruth CORDER to William ALLEN & Betsey STUBBLEFIELD remains the discovery that I am most proud of overall during my years of research. So my bottom line is this. Conduct straight line research until you bump into the inevitable dead end, and at that point you start researching siblings, and those with similar surnames in close geographical proximity for clues. And if that fails to bear fruit then back up a generation and repeat. It really is the best way I have found to get around research roadblocks. And one last hint, look over neighbors in the census regardless the surname. Often they will be related to your line if you check them out. Families tended to cluster afterall, especially pre-railroad times. james wall