Thanks for those who tried to help me find Allen Van Ness in the Cincinnati Census. We had also looked for his living mother's names (Ruth Virginia), but still not found them.. Knowing that it was probably a handwriting extraction problem, here is how I solved it. In the 1900 Cincinnati City Directory, Allen was listed as living at 2241 Gladstone St. At the beginning of this film, it lists the cross streets for Gladstone and so had 5 or 6 street names to look for. Then looking at the pages where the Ward Descriptions are, I found that some of these streets were listed in Wards 1, 2 and 26. I then turned the microfilm sideways and just read street names. In Ward 26, I finally came across Gladstone St. and there was the family at 2243 Gladstone. Ruth Virginia was listed as "Jen(blotch), guess a variation of Virginia. The "Van" was readable but the Ness, looked like "Vess, Tess,etc.), so it had been indexed wrong. -- A little bit of work but I found some valuable info.on the family! Thanks, Renee __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/