Before the formation of Alamance Co, in 1849 the entire area was the western portion of Orange Co. If you had ancestors in western Orange Co before 1849 then you should look for them in Alamance Co after that time. If you had ancestors in Alamance Co then you should look at Orange Co for dates before 1849. Col. John STOCKARD and Giles MEBANE were responsible for the divison of the "western area" of Orange Co. Stockard and Mebane anticipated a hard battle to pass the division. The actual vote was 1,257 for division, 1,011 against the division. One possible help for Stockard and Mebane was the proposed name of the county seat in the companion legislation. The name decided on was "Graham". This was seen as a political move to honor the then Governor on N.C., William A GRAHAM. Gov. Graham was also one of Hillsborough's most respected citizens. Hillsborough was the county seat of Orange Co and had much vocal opposition to the division. Giles MEBANE is credited with naming the county Alamance after the battle of 1771. Some years later a Ggrandaughter of Col. John STOCKARD made (and wrote) history in Alamance Co. Sallie Walker STOCKARD became the first female graduate of the University of North Carolina in 1898. She also became the first female to receive a master's degree from that university. Her thesis for that degree was the first published history of Alamance Co. This thesis not only contained the history of the county but the history of some of the families. It is credited with being the first published genealogy of the ALBRIGHT family. Larry Noah - larmil-1@att.net My family is at - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~lrnoah/ Links can be found there to websites for mailing lists NCOrange-L, BrickChurchNC-L and BEARSE-L.