After Dave's great talk the other day, I spent a couple of hours at the court house looking through the Quarter Session books. They are full of interesting data. In addition to scrapes with the law, there are Coroner's Inquests. I am not sure what required a Coroner's Inquest in the early days, but I did not find any of my family members up through the 1920's. But the ones that are there are quite interesting and detailed...gore and all. One guy shot his wife because he was under the influence of the Devil and another guy died from a visit by God! The stories are great. There are also alcohol, tavern and Hotel License applications. I found proof that my 3rd Great Grand Father did have a connection to the Lafayette Hotel in Driftwood. It is mentioned in Beer's History that a Gore built the Hotel during the Civil War. In the Tavern License for 1885 my 3rd Great grand mother is listed as one of the owners. I have never been able to find any deed or other records where it was bought or sold or owned by them. I am going to index the Coroner's records, post them on the site and offer to do look ups. Book B is the first book and starts in 1872.There is a book 1, but it only contains some murders that occured in the county. I forgot to look and see when the actual Quarter Session files started. If you want me to do a quick search for a family member, send me the name and date range for that person and I will see if there is anything on them. The books contain an overview of what is in the files. The files have all of the court papers involved. Of course the early files are 20' in the air on the top of all the other files! LOL They are also hand written and hard to read. Happy Hunting! Mike Wennin Come Visit the Cameron County Genealogy Project! http://www.rootsweb.com/~pacamero