Nedra, Thanks for the info! The idea that John Franklin Pickering's surname got lost in a boyhood census or two, in that exact way, has been in the back of my mind for a long time. It didn't happen with his two elder siblings, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened with him. In fact, I've searched for him among Orndorff families, Orndorff being his late mother's maiden name, without success. That's why it was disconcerting to find his siblings in 1880 with families named Rudduck and Harrison - surnames that don't appear anywhere in our tree (that I know of). Maybe the wives were related to his mother or father - but no luck identifying that yet. He exacerbates the problem by going by his middle name (as an adult, at least - Dad and all his siblings never heard anyone call him John; they knew him as Grandpa Pick but remember that he went, outside the family, by Frank). In documents from censuses to city directories to his marriage license to a newspaper article, I've found him as John, Frank, John F., John Franklin, J.F. and even Franklin. Makes it that much harder, of course, to recognize him without his surname in 1880 - he could be ANY 4- or 5-year-old boy with ANY of those names. I've even, heeding something I read on another list, poked about for a John Franklin, on the possibility that someone misunderstood his middle name to be his last name. He, and his parents too, have been most difficult to work. Thanks again for your excellent input. Researching these 8 greats: Pickering-Snyder-Roach-Teegardin-Hodges-Evans-Kantner-Shifflet + these contributing Pickering/Snyder lines: Orndorff-Kinsey-Beall And, of course, many more! Peruse our entire GEDCOM at http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=kpickering&I11.x=34&I11.y=8 ONWARD AND BACKWARD! Kurt Pickering, IBSSG La Vergne, TN _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com