This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Roper Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kgDBAEB/817.1 Message Board Post: Jessica: Many ROPER genealogists have access to various data resources which might prove to be helpful, but some of these resources contain very large databases with tens of thousands of names spanning many generations and spanning vast geographic areas worldwide. Also genealogists working within this forum span ages from teenagers to octogenarians. Without knowing YOUR age (which I am NOT necessarily soliciting), it is difficult for us to infer precisely when your great-grandfather might have been born. For example, one of my grandmothers was born in 1910 and lived until 1996. But HER grandfather served in the Civil War. Younger adult members of my immediate family have grandparents bor in the 1930s. Tt is helpful to FIX the information you furnish a bit more thoroughly as to TIME and PLACE. Can you tell us some SPECIFICS as to the precise or approximate date and place of birth of Ira ROPER or even one of his children. The name of Ira's wife would also be helpful. This will give us a context to understand and place his father Joseph Suel ROPER. It seems likely that we can pick him up in Census returns even if he isn't in an existing ROPER family history database!