Dear Mac McNutt - How to get a bead on an elusive ancestral family I am told, but have not confirmed, that each LDS family history center has a consolidated US census index, which is called AIS. It is on several hundred microfiche, and each search (as they call it) comprises a census year. Search 1 is for the earliest censuses, and includes some tax lists to substitute for the destroyed 1790 censuses for some states. Search 2 is for the next census, and so on. It is not broken down by states, but is for the whole USA as it was comprised at the time of the census. As we acquired more territory and population, the later Searches are broken down by region--say Search 7. This may be a way to find your McNutt family. Be sure to ask at the FHC how to use the AIS. If the person operating the center does not know, ask if there is a free four-page print-out explaining the AIS. There should also be a notebook. This is a useful, although flawed, tool to locate people who are on the move (after the censuses began--not while we were still under British or Spanish control). There are duplications, omissions, etc. Do not give up hope if you do not find your people. Just grit your teeth and say to yourself that you have to learn more detective skills, like using tax lists, court records, land records, probates, etc. Good luck. I hope you are near an LDS center. Remember they are staffed by volunteers. Some know a lot about genealogy and some know hardly anything--just willing souls. E.W.Wallace southern California