Carol, Thanks so much for all the information. I appreciate it very much. The Philip Wise in question was a landowner, and about a year ago I checked the land records in Salt Lake City and didn't find any transfer, and so I have assumed that the land passed to the next generation by probate. When I attempted to access the chancery records for that period I found that they were located on 16 rolls of microfilm, that were completely unsorted and completely out of order and that many of the records were in a condition that were difficult to read and understand. It would have required weeks of effort just to go through them. I have assumed that because probate records kept track of property that the records would have been continually accessible and that's why I brought up the possibility that those records for that time period might have been destroyed because they don't seem to be available anywhere. I visited the courthouse in St. Clairsville last summer and the only probate records I could find for that period were those associated with wills. Neil E. Folsom, CA