Dear Adrian and the rest of the family, About the spellings in PRINTED census records. All too often, our family name has been mistakenly corrupted in recent published census indexes. This makes it very hard to find an ancestor in these indices. For instance, the "SAPER" spelling that you list from the 1810 North Carolina printed index is NOT how the original record actually is written. This again is a classic example of inexperienced researchers mis-reading the double "ss" as a "p". It can also be mis-read as a "f" (written "backward"). When some genealogical publishing companies began compiling state census records to print them a few years ago, they had a limited staff just were not familiar with huge numbers of family names. They couldn't take the time to check out each and every unusual name. Sadly, these books are now widely circulated and many new family researchers are unable to locate their ancestors because the spelling has entered print with a corrupted spelling. I haven't found STEPHEN Sr. in the 1850 census yet either. His son, STEPHEN Jr. was in Pike County, near his brother LEWIS and JAMES SASSER. However, neither of these three families are listed in the 1850 Mississippi Index that I have checked. In fact, WILLIAM SASSER is the ONLY Sasser listed in this particular published index. I have found the printed "SAPER" version several times but always, when I checked the original census itself, I found it is actually a double ss. I have even found where the authors of index books have misread the initial S as an L and printed the name as LASER or LAPER. On top of this problem, we also face the other problem of the name being spelled poorly in the original records by the census takers. They ofen could only barely read and write and had to do the best they could in spelling names. So when you are checking printed index books, always look for several different spellings. Your cuz, Robert Earl Woodham