Nola, My approach to this problem may seem a bit complicated to some, but it seemed to work for me. I started with the listing of sex and age for each John Bishop family member in the 1850 census. Next I subtracted ten years from each persons age, leaving out those less than ten years old. Then using the column headings for the 1840 census I made the list of age ranges by sex as follows 1120001 - 111001. Next I did a search for John Bishop in ancestry.com for the state of New York 1840 census. I got thirty-seven possibilities. I clicked on ones in counties along known trails and waterways. After just a few clicks I found an exact match of the above numbers at Delhi in Delaware county, page 408. There may be another match in the list of thirty-seven possibilities, but I have my doubts. There is an additional female in this household age 70-80. Probably one of the grandmothers. Was the John P. Bishop in Erie County, PA 1850, age 22, carpenter, born NY, John's nephew? Gayle ----- Original Message ----- From: Nola L. Thompson To: gdhix@cableone.net Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 3:21 PM Subject: PA/NY census Dear Gayle Dean Hix, Hope you don't mind me writing to question you on how you found for Kim Williams in Oregon, her ancestor in Rochester NY when she only knew he was in Erie Co, Pa in 1930???? I have a similiar problem with my Bishop family, only earlier. John Bishop b. abt 1799 in NY, was in 1850 Erie Co census with Emelia b. abt 1802 in NY, and children, Gabriel, Abba (Abagail), M.B,, Sarah, John B, Adaline, Mary Jane, and Harriet, age 6 - all born NY. John is in 1860 and 1870 census again with several of his children. He died 11 July 1873 according to cemetery stones in Waterford Cemetery. His son, William Benson Bishop was my gg grandfather and he married Lydia Agnes McFarland and they had Fred Warren, Jasper O and Harriet L. Bishop. Fred Warren was my G grandfather b. 9 May 1856 in Waterford, Erie, Pa. He died there 1 Aug 1923 after spending most of his life in the west. His widow paid $32 for 1/2 lot in Waterford Cemetery, but the cemetery has no record of his burial. I think the records were destroyed and all the have is from the tombstones on the older burials. Anyway-----do you have any idea how I can find where in NY they came from? I've look at ramdom census records for near counties and Bishop seems to have been the "Smith" or "Jones" of the day--they are everywhere. I would sure appreciate your ideas??? Thank you, sincerely, Nola L. Thompson nltt@ktc.com